The Redeemed (37 page)

There was only
one news van, as well as Alison's car, outside the clubhouse. Jenny parked
close to the door, pointing outwards so she could make a quick getaway after
the verdict. She planned to deal with the witnesses in the first half of the
morning and sum up to the jury immediately afterwards. By early afternoon it
would all be over.

Alison greeted
her warmly and apologized for handing her a thick sheaf of urgent emails. Jenny
sensed that she knew, and guessed that Simon Moreton had issued her with strict
instructions to keep things running smoothly. She flicked through her messages
and decided they could wait.

'And there was a
call from Dr Kerr,' Alison said, as if preparing her for disappointing news.
'Apparently it wasn't Freddy Reardon's DNA in Jacobs's body. He's expecting the
last batch of test results this morning but he said not to hold your breath.'

Jenny nodded. In
a strange way it was a relief. The pressure to make a connection with Eva had
dissolved.

Three separate
deaths. Three separate causes. Trust Simon. One thing at a time.

Her headache had
softened to a low persistent throb as she took her seat at the head of the
courtroom. All eyes were on her, from Father Starr and Kenneth Donaldson at the
back, through the ranks of journalists, to the jury at her side and the black
wall of lawyers opposite. This was what it must have felt like for Eva going to
work some mornings, Jenny thought to herself, except she had to perform naked.

If the lawyers
felt any measure of shame at their part in the suppression of evidence, they
weren't allowing it to show. Annabelle Stern was smiling. Ed Prince felt
confident enough not even to have bothered turning up, sending an assistant in
his place. No doubt there was far more money to be made back at the office.

'Members of the
jury,' Jenny began, 'thank you for your patience. Before you consider your
verdict, I have asked three key witnesses back to see if they can help us understand
why Miss Donaldson made a complaint to the police.' She should have gone on to
address the article that had been written about her in the
Post,
but when she
tried to find the words, they escaped her. It was easier to behave like the
lawyers, to brazen it out and pretend nothing had happened. She drew back her
shoulders. 'Mrs Christine Turnbull, please.'

The witness was
dressed in a navy summer suit with a light silk blouse. She managed both to be
both alluringly beautiful and to radiate wholesomeness. It was impossible not
to admire her.

Jenny reminded
her that she remained under oath and asked her to cast her mind back nearly
four months to the early part of March. Had she noticed anything out of the
ordinary in Miss Donaldson's behaviour?

'She was happy.
We had just commissioned polling which showed over seventy per cent of voters
back our campaign. It was a real shot in the arm for us all.'

'You have been
made aware, I am sure, of the evidence that she telephoned the police on the
evening of 15 March in an apparent state of intoxication, complaining of harassment.'

'Yes,' Christine
said, with a note of sadness. 'And I can think of only one explanation. The
poll had been published the previous week. There was a flurry of articles
predicting the end of the pornography business in Britain as we know it. If.
ever there was a time Eva was likely to have been deliberately intimidated,
that was it.'

'Wouldn't she
have told you?'

'Not
necessarily. Our opponents are nothing if not cunning. They know everything
about how to prey on human weakness. One can only imagine what they might have
threatened her with. I'm sure they weren't short of material from her past.'

'But what about
the fact Eva was incoherent, possibly drunk? How does that fit with the woman
you knew?'

'We all have our
breaking points,' Christine said. 'Even Eva.'

'That's
certainly true,' Jenny responded drily, 'but we also know that Eva was pursuing
a former employer, GlamourX, for unpaid royalties. If what you say about your
opponents is true, wasn't that an act of recklessness bordering on the utterly
irresponsible?'

The lawyers
bristled. Annabelle Stern's stony face told her she was sailing dangerously
close to the wind.

Unfazed,
Christine said, 'Eva was entitled to what was rightfully hers; I have no doubt
she would have put the money to good use.'

Then why had
such draconian measures been taken to keep these matters secret? Jenny wanted
to know. And how could Christine Turnbull remain so composed when she was part
of a machine that had put such pressure to bear on the dead woman? Then it
occurred to her that beneath the mask Christine might be churning as much as
she was, that all that was sustaining her through this ordeal was the imminent
prospect of her campaign reaching its end.

'The night Eva
was killed, you were at the Mission Church with your husband, is that correct?'

'Yes.'

'From what
time?'

'Shortly after
six, as far as I recall.'

'And when did
you receive the message that Miss Donaldson wasn't coming?'

'A little while
before the service. At about six-thirty.'

'Were you with
your husband at the time?'

'We were in the
boardroom at the church offices planning our meetings for the coming week.'

'Didn't it occur
to either of you to try to persuade her to come?'

Christine said,
'No. I think we both felt that if she were exhausted we had better leave her to
recover. She had a busy time ahead. We all did.'

'Might there
have been another reason why Eva didn't come to the church that night?'

Christine said,
'If there was, I think we would all know about it by now.'

A pair of junior
lawyers escorted Christine Turnbull to the door, where she was met by a driver
who would whisk her away to her final frantic round of lobbying meetings. As
Joel Nelson took her place in the box, Alison leaned over to Jenny to let her
know she had received a text from Andy

Kerr saying his
test results had come back with something that might be of interest. Could she
call him?

'You call him,'
Jenny said. 'If it's important, get him to court.'

Alison crept out
to the side office as Jenny turned her attention to Nelson. His face radiated
confidence.

'Tell me, Mr
Nelson,' Jenny said, 'did you and Eva often pray together?'

'Not often, but
we certainly did.'

'Can you tell us
what about?'

Nelson said, 'I
can put my hand on my heart and say there is nothing Eva ever told me in
confidence that could have any bearing on this inquest. She was looking
forwards, not back. She was seeking strength and inspiration, and on the whole
that's what we prayed for.'

'What else?'

'Normal
day-to-day things, the minor incidents of life.'

'Money?'

Nelson shook his
head. 'No. That was never a subject that was mentioned.'

'Relationships?'

Nelson gave a
patient smile. 'Ma'am, to tell you the truth, whenever I sat down with Eva she
usually wanted to pray for others.'

'Others in the
church?'

'For the most
part.'

'Did a lot of
people bring her their troubles?'

'Of course.'

'Such as?'

'You name it.
But that's what we ask people to do - to offer up their problems in prayer.'

Jenny heard the
door to the office open and close. Alison tiptoed across the creaky, uneven
boards towards her. She leaned down and spoke to her in a whisper.

'Something about
carbon fibre particles on both Freddy Reardon and Alan Jacobs's bodies. There
might be some connection with Eva. He'll be here in fifteen minutes, but we
can't keep him - he's dealing with a cot death.'

Jenny thanked
her and turned back to Nelson. 'Did she ever mention Freddy Reardon or Alan
Jacobs in these sessions?'

'You make it
sound like a formal ritual - it really wasn't. And no, I don't believe she
did.'

'How can you be
sure? It sounds as if she mentioned so many.'

'I chose my
words very precisely, ma'am,' Nelson said. 'I don't
believe
she did, but
it's also possible I don't remember.'

Jenny glanced at
Annabelle Stern and saw her features harden. The assistant next to her was
punching a message into his phone. She sensed that she had strayed into uncomfortable
territory. Mentioning Freddy and Jacobs was a breach of her deal with Moreton;
grudgingly, she took a sideways step.

'Did the
problems you prayed for ever include suicidal thoughts?'

'That came up
occasionally and it still does. It's a far more common phenomenon than you
might think.'

'Do you have
protocols, a system to refer such people to professionals who can treat them?'

'The church
doesn't hold itself out as being a substitute for medicine, if that's what
you're implying.'

'But you are a
church that believes in miracles.'

'That's the
basis of Christian faith,' Nelson said. 'Jesus was God made flesh. He can, and
does, heal all the time.'

Sullivan scraped
back his chair. 'Ma'am, I fail to see the relevance of this line of
questioning.'

'I'll put it
directly. Mr Nelson, is it possible that someone who was relying on Eva for
support had become an unbearable burden? Threatening, even?'

Nelson shook his
head. 'Absolutely not. Prayer counsellors are told to refer anyone they can't
cope with upwards. In Eva's case that would have been to Pastor Lennox Strong.'

Satisfied,
Sullivan sat down with a look that warned her not to trespass off-limits again.

Jenny took
Nelson back to the first two weeks in March, but he claimed he knew nothing
more than Christine Turn- bull. She tried again, but he stuck resolutely to the
party line.

'Can you
remember the last time you spoke to her, the phone call on the Sunday evening?'

'Very well.'

'Where were
you?'

'At my desk in
the church office. The phone rang, it was Eva. I told her that Lennox had just
been asking after her. He wanted to go through the running order before the
service. She sounded very quiet. She said she was really sorry, but she was too
exhausted to come. I asked if she was all right, and she explained that it had
been a very long week and she just had to crash out.'

'Crash out
?
Are those the words she used?'

'Yes.'

Jenny picked up
the file of documents she had received the previous week from Craven's
solicitors and turned to the section containing the statements DI Goodison's
team had taken in the two days before Craven confessed. She turned to the single
sheet containing Nelson's.

'You gave a
statement to the police on the evening of Monday the 10th. In it you say,
"Eva called to say she was too tired to come in. I said we understood and
would see her in the morning." You didn't say anything to the police about
crashing out,
or asking how
she was. Why didn't you give them this detail?'

'I suppose I was
still shell-shocked.'

'You didn't want
to be as helpful as you could? It's an important detail, Mr Nelson - she didn't
crash out, did she? She opened a bottle of wine when she should have been
talking to four thousand people. When someone's spoken to you for the last time
you think back and remember every word, don't you?'

Rocked, Nelson
said, 'I apologize. That's all I can put it down to. The shock.'

'You're sure you
haven't added this detail to make it sound less ambiguous?'

'It's what she
said, I swear.'

She looked to
the lawyers. 'Does anyone wish to question this witness?'

There were no
takers.

Jenny wrestled
with the feeling that there was more, that she had missed something, but
reluctantly she was forced to release Nelson from the witness box.