The Redeemed (35 page)

Jenny left the
building through the back door, issuing instructions to Alison not, under any
circumstances, to tell anyone where she was going. The excitement of the moment
was too great for the news crews, who broke with convention and swarmed around
her as she fought her way through them. Reporters hurled a barrage of
questions. 'Who was harassing her, Mrs Cooper?' 'What do you think the Decency
campaign has to hide?' 'Is Michael Turnbull a suspect?' She kept her lips
firmly closed. Talking to the media was one professional offence for which
there was no excuse: a coroner who spoke to the press wouldn't be a coroner the
following morning.

She piled into
her car and headed back towards the city. In her rear-view mirror she caught a
glimpse of reporters surging around Michael Turnbull and his lawyers as they
scrambled into their Mercedes van. Jenny could only imagine how they planned to
retaliate. She expected a blow to land before the end of the day; she had to
make sure to strike first.

It was nearing
three o'clock when she arrived, perspiring and out of breath, in the welcome
cool of the Cromwell Hospital's reception area. Jenny approached the long,
blond- wood reception desk and spoke to a receptionist.

'Could you tell
me if Mr Justice Laithwaite has booked in? I need to see him immediately.'

The young woman
tapped on her computer.

'Your name,
please.'

'Jenny Cooper.
Severn Vale District Coroner. It's a professional matter.'

Unimpressed, the
girl ran her eyes over a list of patients. 'I'm afraid he's not checked in yet.
You're welcome to wait in the lounge.'

Jenny stepped
away from the desk and pondered the etiquette of buttonholing a sick judge on
his way into hospital. She wasn't even sure what points of law she would argue;
in the rush for the train there had been no time to consult textbooks.

'Are you quite
sure? My surgeon assured me
ten
days. Well, could you please make enquiries? I'll need to speak to my
insurers.'

Jenny noticed
the small, round man in the beige linen suit for the first time. He was getting
testy with a receptionist at the far end of the desk.

'Mr Justice
Laithwaite?'

He snapped round
with a startled expression.

'Jenny Cooper.
Severn Vale District Coroner.'

'Good God.'

'I'm sorry to
disturb you — '

'Really, this is
hardly the time — '

'I know, Judge,
but my inquest into the death of Eva Donaldson has reached a critical stage. I
only learned this morning that you granted an injunction forbidding any
disclosure of her private documents or affairs. I need to know what's in that
material.'

'The moment to
discuss this was at two o'clock.'

'I had to come
from Bristol.'

'I'm no longer
available, Mrs Cooper.'

'Judge, I need
an order lifting the injunction for the purposes of my inquest. It's a
formality—'

'It's out of the
question.' He turned back to the desk and rapped on the counter. 'What's going
on?'

'I'm trying to
get through to your surgeon's secretary, sir.'

Jenny refused to
give in. 'I can impose reporting restrictions. Judge, it's vital I know what
was happening in her private life - the inquest is meaningless without that
knowledge.'

'Mrs Cooper,
don't you think the public interest might best be served by not raking over
these coals until the Decency Bill has at least had its first reading? We both
know how the media work. What you propose risks derailing the bill completely.'

'With respect,
Judge, I can't see how the public interest can be served by anything less than
the truth.'

He grunted
dismissively.

'Judge, it's not
Eva's Donaldson's murder that is at issue here. What you won't have read in the
newspaper is that two of her close associates in the church have committed
suicide in the last two weeks. One of them was a sixteen- year-old boy. I can't
prove a connection with whatever was going on with Eva, but I can't disprove
one either. All I know is that it smells bad, and this injunction makes it
smell even worse.'

There was a
pause as Laithwaite tried to absorb this information. She had stirred his
conscience.

Taking advantage
of the lull in conversation, the receptionist offered him the phone. 'Are you
able to speak to her, sir? You might be able to explain it better than I can.'

'In a minute.'
Laithwaite moved away from the counter, gesturing Jenny to follow him around
the corner into an alcove that afforded a small degree of privacy. 'What sort
of connection are we talking about?'

'Both of them
were in Eva Donaldson's study group at the church Michael Turnbull helped to
establish. The boy hanged himself the night before he was due to give evidence
at my inquest. They were close.'

'And the other?'

'A married
father of one who'd had sex with a man hours before he took his own life. It
gets more complicated - he was senior mental health nurse at a unit the church
tried to get involved with. A month before he died he persuaded a patient, a
teenage girl, to give up her medication. She hanged herself too.'

'It all sounds
rather circumstantial.'

Jenny said, 'The
little evidence I have suggests Eva was falling out with the church in the
weeks before she died. She was drinking; on one occasion she called the police
and claimed she was being harassed. There - now you know more than I do.'

Laithwaite
pressed a hand to his midriff and grimaced. He looked for a moment as if the
pain in his stomach might overwhelm him.

Jenny reached out
to steady him. 'I'm so sorry. Do you need to sit down?'

'No. Please—' He
pushed out a hand to hold her at bay and waited for the spasm to pass. 'You've
caught me in a weak moment, Mrs Cooper. But I can see why you considered it so
urgent.' He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. 'Given what you've told me,
I'm prepared to accept there's a public interest in you being able to view any
restricted material held by solicitors for the respective parties, but on
strict condition that you only make public that which has a direct bearing on
the case.'

'I'm not even
sure who the respective parties are,' Jenny said.

'Ah, of course.'
Laithwaite lowered his voice, as if fearing they might be overheard: 'They were
Eva Donaldson and Lord Turnbull. I'll telephone my clerk and have him draft the
order. I suppose you'll want it immediately.'

'If you could,
Judge. Thank you.'

With a nod, he
started back to the desk.

Chancing her
luck, Jenny said, 'You wouldn't happen to recall what it was Turnbull wanted to
suppress?'

Laithwaite
stopped and looked her up and down, as if only now weighing the full
consequences of his hasty decision. Jenny feared he was having second thoughts,
but the doubt seemed to pass, giving way to an air of resignation.

'Sex,' he said,
'and a large measure of hypocrisy. A few years ago, while he was still in
business, Turnbull liked to play the magnanimous host. Apparently on one
occasion Miss Donaldson was part of the cabaret, a fact she chose to remind him
of earlier this year.'

'They had a
history.'

'More of a
chance encounter.'

'And she was
trying to blackmail him with it?'

'I'm afraid I
can't recall every detail.'

'But the
injunction must have covered more than that. She had other contractual disputes
her solicitor wouldn't discuss with me.'

Laithwaite
looked suddenly tired. Answering her was becoming an effort. 'It covers
anything that might bring Lord Turnbull, the Decency campaign or his church
into disrepute.' He gave a pained smile. 'Do try not to be late next time, Mrs
Cooper.'

He moved off to
the desk, where the receptionist was waiting for him with an explanation for
his query. Jenny watched him give a tired, indifferent shrug as if all the
fight had drained out of him; and something told her that it probably had.

Jenny made her
way to a sprawling internet cafe in High Street Kensington and hired a terminal
at which she set up a temporary office among the students and travellers. It
was too risky to use her phone with so many people in earshot, so she
communicated with Alison via email, instructing her to request Mr Justice
Laithwaite's clerk to fax copies of his order waiving the injunction to both
sets of solicitors and to her office. She wanted old-fashioned hard copies to
arrive in the lawyers' hands: email was too easily erased.

It was a long
anxious wait for a response. Staring at the screen, waiting for a message to
appear, she thought about what Laithwaite had said. It sounded as if Eva had
been a hostess at one of Turnbull's parties, and more than just a pretty girl
serving drinks. The judge had given the impression that Eva had been one of
many girls Turnbull would have encountered while living the life of a
high-rolling businessman. It was possible he wouldn't have remembered her, but
she would have remembered him.

Nearly twenty
minutes passed before Alison's reply arrived. Jenny clicked open the attachment
long enough only for the time it took to press 'print', collected the hard copy
from the desk and hurried out to hail a taxi.

The text was far
briefer than she had anticipated.

IN
THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

CLAIM
No. TD280110

BETWEEN:

A

and

B

ex parte The
Coroner for the Severn Vale District

ORDER

Upon application by the Coroner for the Severn Vale District,
the terms of the order in this matter dated 28 January are varied as follows:

1)
The Coroner for the Severn Vale District, namely Mrs Jenny
Cooper, shall have the right to inspect all documents and materials which are
subject to the terms of the said order, and to make whatever use of them as she
sees fit in the conduct of her inquiry into the death of Miss Eva Donaldson.

Signed on behalf
of Mr Justice Laithwaite by his clerk, it bore the court office seal. It was
the genuine article, but less than Jenny had hoped for. There was no mention of
the contents of the previous order, and no schedule of the documents covered.
It meant that even if the lawyers opened their files to her, she had no means
of checking if they were complete.

The cab was
crossing Hyde Park Corner en route for Lincoln's Inn Fields when her phone
rang. It was the office number. She pulled the glass screen separating her from
the driver tight shut and answered.

'You got the
order, Mrs Cooper?' Alison asked.

'It's pretty
flimsy but I guess it'll do. Have all the parties received it?

'I just called
both offices to confirm. It's there, or at least a PA's taken it off the
machine . . .' Alison paused. 'You won't have seen the
Post,
of course.'

Jenny felt a
rising sensation of dread. 'Why? What have they written?'

'Are you sure —?’

'Tell me.'

'There's a photo
of you coming out of Weston police station. The article says you're helping
police with their inquiry into the death of your cousin in 1972 . . . It's not
so much what it says as the way they say it.'

'Say what?'
Jenny snapped.

'It says the
case has been reopened following a complaint by the dead girl's younger
brother.'

'What other lies
have they printed?'

'They quote
someone—'

'Just read it to
me.'

'A
former colleague described Mrs Cooper, 43, as a somewhat driven but fragile
character, who gave up a successful career in family law due to ongoing
emotional problems exacerbated by an acrimonious divorce. She has one child of
her own who lives with his father.'

'That's nice. No
name?'

'No.'

Jenny's first
thought was of Ross reading the article, or, more likely, one of his college
friends taunting him with it. And then there was David and his prissy pregnant
girlfriend.

None of them
knew about Katy. Should she phone them? What would she say?

'So, is any of
it true, Mrs Cooper?' Alison asked warily.

Avoiding the
question, Jenny said, 'Make sure you speak to my three witnesses. Offer them a
ride to court in a police car if they've got a problem with it.'

She ended the
call and thrust Katy out of her mind.