The Coroner (17 page)

    'Could
you say whether she had injected it herself?'

    'No.'

    'Do heroin
users usually inject themselves?'

    'Yes,
unless they are particularly inexperienced.'

    'Could
you tell whether Katy was an experienced heroin user?'

    'She
didn't have any of the obvious signs: emaciation, for example — '

    Jenny
glanced up and saw Andy Taylor half raising his hand, trying to catch her
attention. Jenny nodded to him and gestured Alison to go and see what he
wanted. 'Hold on a moment, please, Dr Peterson.'

    Alison
leaned over to Andy Taylor. Both he and Mrs Taylor spoke animatedly in
whispers, adamant about something. Alison returned to Jenny and relayed their
message: Katy took marijuana and cocaine but always protested that she and her
friends didn't touch heroin. The night she had ended up in hospital was as a
result of smoking crack, which she wasn't used to. It made sense: heroin was a
complicated drug to use intravenously, getting the needles together was a
problem in itself for a fifteen-year-old girl. A pinch of coke was a much
easier high.

    A
sudden and very obvious realization hit. She turned back to Peterson. 'Am I
right in assuming that, to be fatal, this dose of heroin probably went straight
into a vein?'

    He
considered the question for a moment. Jenny thought she detected a flicker of
alarm. Perhaps his mind was going in the same direction as hers. 'I'd say that
was more than likely.'

    'And
a girl unused to injecting heroin would struggle to find a vein alone, wouldn't
she? We've all had experienced nurses misfire trying to take blood samples?'

    Jurors
nodded in recognition.

    Peterson
was forced to concede. 'It's not the easiest thing to master.'

    'But
once you
have
mastered it, an accidental overdose becomes increasingly
unlikely - is that fair to say?'

    'I
suppose so.'

    'What
I'm driving at, Dr Peterson, is that it is more likely than not that Katy was
injected with a fatal dose by a third party who knew what they were doing.'

    'It's
possible.'

    'There
are tests, aren't there, which could have told you whether she had taken heroin
before? Hair analysis, for example.'

    The
pathologist stirred uncomfortably in his chair, crossed, then uncrossed his
arms. 'Yes.'

    'Did
you perform those tests?'

    'No.'

    'Why
not?

    He
shook his head vaguely. 'They didn't seem relevant.'

    Jenny
wanted to come back with a smart remark but this time managed to resist the
urge. There was a thought nagging somewhere in the recesses of her mind, a
connection she wasn't quite making. Then it came to her: fingernails. She had
read enough pathology in the few weeks since her appointment to know that while
DNA might degrade very fast when exposed to the elements, fibres did not. If
Katy had been forcibly drugged, the chances are she would have fought back and
in the process collected fibres from her attacker's clothing under her nails.
Either the police Forensic Science Service or a Home Office pathologist could
take scrapings and order detailed tests to determine the provenance of any
recovered fibres. All of this was expensive, of course, and now every aspect of
police work was tightly budgeted, such tests would be rare.

    'Dr
Peterson, did you take scrapings from under Katy's nails in order to test for
fibres or foreign DNA?'

    'No. I
wouldn't do that unless specifically asked by the police. It would require
liaison with the Forensic Science Service.'

    Jenny
bet the police hadn't troubled themselves to test for fibres, either. Even if
they had, she wouldn't trust their results. She was stuck in an evidential
hole. Both the police and Peterson had done just enough to cover themselves,
but neither had done enough to prove exactly how Katy died. There were tests
which should have been ordered but weren't, tests which even over a month later
could still be done if she was prepared to take a very drastic step.

    Jenny
looked over at the tortured faces of Andy and Claire Taylor and reached for her
mints.

    She retreated
to her office and gathered her strength while, on the other side of the door,
Alison directed the jurors across the village green to where they would find
lunch waiting for them in the pub. Listening to their cheerful chatter as they
stepped out into the warm afternoon, she tried to collect her fractured
thoughts. The knock at the door came before she was ready. She turned with a
start.

    'Come
in.'

    Alison
opened the door, held it back for Andy and Claire, and followed them in. Claire
looked even more pallid than she had earlier, traumatized by her morning in
court.

    Andy
was putting on a brave face, but his expression was strained and weary,
Claire's depression taking as much out of him as the inquest itself. He said,
'Mrs Trent said you wanted to talk to us.'

    'Yes
. . . Sorry. I'd offer you a seat but it's rather cramped in here.'

    He
shrugged. 'It's all right.' He looped his arm around Claire's middle, realizing
that they hadn't been summoned to hear good news. She said nothing, her eyes
unfocused, turned towards the window.

    Jenny
said, 'I know you both understand that the purpose of an inquest is to
determine as far as possible the precise cause of death. You've heard the
evidence as I have, and I expect you've come to the same conclusion as me -
that neither the police nor the pathologist did everything they could to find
out whether Katy was alone or with someone else when she died, or even whether
her death was accidental.' She hesitated. Even tranquillized, she could feel her
heart banging against her ribs. 'I'm afraid that my predecessor, Mr Marshall,
failed to have certain tests carried out on Katy's body which could shed a lot
of light . . . Apart from testing for fibres, he could have ordered hair
analysis. That would have shown what drugs Katy took and when - hair is like a
chemical calendar. That information could help us with finding out where the
drugs came from, maybe even
who
they came from . . . Those tests could
still be carried out.'

    Claire
looked up sharply, tears in her eyes. 'No. You're not touching her. I'm not
letting you.'

    Alison
gave Jenny a look that said, 'I told you so.'

    'Mrs
Taylor, we need to find out if there was anything untoward about your
daughter's death.'

    'I
knew you'd want to do this. I
knew.
I'm not having Katy disturbed. It's
not right.' She tugged away from her husband's side.

    Andy
said, 'Love, just listen—'

    'There's
nothing to hear. I didn't want any of this. It's not doing anyone any good. Why
can't you just leave her alone?' Fighting tears, she made for the door, forcing
Alison to step aside.

    Andy
grabbed her wrist. 'Claire . . .'

    'You
can go to hell. I'm not having it.' She yanked free and fled, sobbing, out of
the door.

    Jenny
said, 'Mr Taylor—'

    He cut
her off. 'This is all wrong.'

    'If
you'll just let me explain. I'd rather have your cooperation—'

    'Tell
that to my wife.' He followed Claire out of the door, slamming it hard behind
him.

    Jenny
stared into space. She felt like a driver who'd just run down an innocent
pedestrian, as if the Taylors' distress was her fault.

    Alison
said, 'You're not really going to dig her up?'

    'I
don't think I've got any choice.'

    'What
do you think you're going to find?'

    'I
don't know. That's the point. I need a Home Office pathologist outside the
area, someone who's not involved in the local mafia.'

    'It'll
have to be Wales, then. There's Professor Lloyd at Newport.'

    'Fine.
I'm going to order an exhumation. I'd be grateful if you'd make arrangements as
quickly as possible.'

    'Are
you sure about this? An exhumation . . . Mr Marshall never—'

    'Maybe
if he had, we wouldn't be here now.'

    'If
you want my advice, I'd leave this decision until later . . . when you've had a
chance to calm down.'

    Jenny
snapped. 'If I want your advice I'll ask for it.'

    Alison
stiffened and turned to the door with exaggerated calm. 'Whatever you think
best, Mrs Cooper.'

    She
didn't announce the reason for the adjournment. She intended, if at all
possible, to keep the exhumation secret and away from the public gaze. When
Hartley stood up and demanded to know the reason they were being sent away
until Monday morning, Jenny said, 'To carry out further enquiries.' She was
under no obligation to tell him or the jury and he deeply resented the fact. As
she left the hall he was in a huddle with his henchman, Mallinson, and two
others who had appeared over the lunch break. She guessed they were lawyers
from the Severn Vale District Hospital Trust, hurriedly summoned to consider
the implications of Peterson's incomplete post-mortem. Hartley would be asking
for notes and records, desperate to isolate and destroy any incriminating
evidence.

    Outside
the hall Grantham was sitting in his Mercedes - a fancy car for a town hall
public servant - with a phone pressed to his ear. He glanced furtively at Jenny
as she passed. She considered stopping and asking him what business he had
being at her inquest, but managed to restrain herself. In the ten minutes they
had had face to face in her office she had learned all she needed to know about
him: he was a little man with an even smaller mind and a big opinion of
himself. It was no use talking to a person like that; she would have to show
him through her deeds who was boss.

    Her
bullishness was short-lived. Back at the office she picked up an email from
Mike at the Ministry of Justice to say that the IT department was overstretched
and he wouldn't be able to install her new system for over a month. And spewing
out of the fax machine were another dozen death reports and a terse letter from
the finance department at the local authority demanding the coroner's accounts
for the previous year.

    Jenny
sat at her desk, looked with a sense of foreboding at the heap of untidy papers
that Marshall had optimistically called 'the books', and decided that her time
was far too precious to waste in tedious administration. She moved the papers
on to the floor, out of sight. Alison could deal with them later.

    Reading
through the latest batch of local deaths and with her medication wearing thin,
each brief, impersonal description conjured its own tragic story. Male,
twenty-eight, chronic asthmatic, suspected respiratory failure. Male,
eighty-five, partially decomposed body discovered on kitchen floor, cause
unknown. Female, fifty-three, alcoholic, suspected brain haemorrhage. Female,
forty-one, psychiatric outpatient, fall/jump from ninth-floor balcony. Here
were the one in five of the population whose corporeal journey ended on the
mortuary slab; to whose humiliating ends it was Jenny's task to afford some
small measure of dignity.

    After
just four days as coroner she was already the earthly representative of fifty
traumatically departed souls. Knowing only snatches of their stories, she
nevertheless felt their presence. Many times during the long hours in Dr
Travis's office spent trying to fathom the nature of the unexplained dread
which slithered through the gloomy recesses of her mind, she had described it
as a fear of death. The psychiatrist had urged her to summon childhood memories
of viewing the bodies of her grandparents, hoping that such memories would hold
the key, but they didn't. She had tried to explain that the sensation was
something far greater than that: a feeling of all- encompassing doom. He told
her that lots of anxiety sufferers used the same language to describe their
symptoms. Sometimes she could believe that she was simply suffering from a
common ailment, but there were occasions - and she never dared tell him this -
when she truly believed that what had broken down was not her nervous system,
but the delicate barrier that separated everyday life from the reality of evil.