The Coroner (22 page)

    She
felt like a fraud. She was still popping pills and starting at shadows. The
subtext of David's questions was:
I hope for your sake you're not kidding
yourself. Cracking up in the Coroner's Court really would be the end of your
career.
She had butterflies in her stomach and minor palpitations. She took
a large mouthful of wine and wondered if she shouldn't have taken the temazepam
after all.

    Deborah
reappeared with Ross in tow. He was dressed in baggy jeans and a long-sleeved
T-shirt and his hair, dark like hers and shoulder-length, was still flat on one
side from where he'd been sleeping.

    David
grunted in disapproval. 'Couldn't find a comb?'

    'No.
Hi, Mum.'

    'Hi,
sweetheart.' She gave him a hug which he didn't return, self-conscious in front
of Deborah and his father.

    He
noticed Steve on the patio stubbing out his cigarette. 'Who's that?'

    'Steve's
a neighbour of mine.'

    'Yeah,
right.'

    'He
offered to drive me, that's all.'

    Ross
shuffled over to the table. 'What's for lunch?'

    Between
them, Deborah and Steve made a brave effort to keep the small talk rolling
throughout the meal. They discussed her work as a senior theatre nurse, her
three sisters, who were all settled down with children and couldn't understand
why she hadn't done the same, and the blessings of internet shopping. As far as
Jenny was aware, Steve didn't own a computer but you wouldn't have known. She
and David strained to chip in with light and uncontroversial observations, but
Ross remained largely silent and surly at the end of the table. She had worried
on the way over that he would react badly to her bringing Steve - she hadn't
had a boyfriend since her divorce - but he seemed too deeply buried in himself
to care.

    By
the time Deborah was serving strawberries and meringues David had drunk enough
to tackle the subject they had gathered to discuss.

    Never
the diplomat, he launched in without notice. 'Well, Ross, I can't say I was
very impressed with those so-called teachers of yours. If I was in any doubt
that you should do your A levels elsewhere, that parents' evening settled it.'

    Jenny,
tense, said, 'We haven't actually decided that's what's going to happen.'

    'What
if I'm happy where I am?'

    David
topped up his glass. 'The thing is, even today, if you want to read medicine at
university you need straight As.'

    'I never
said I want to do medicine.'

    'You
told me —'

    'You
told me that's what
you
wanted.'

    'He
doesn't have to decide this minute, does he?' Jenny said. 'The issue is whether
he's in the right school. He's got to be somewhere he's happy.'

    'I told
you. I want to stay where I am.'

    David
sighed. 'It's a sink, Ross. They don't have any ambition for you. They treat
you the same way as the kids from the council estate. If you got a job as the
manager of a supermarket they'd think it was a success story.'

    Jenny
said, 'Can we not get emotive?'

    'It's
his entire future we're talking about. You don't get second chances at
education. This is a decision that will affect him for the rest of his life.'

    'You
think I don't know that? I'm not stupid.'

    'I
didn't say you were.'

    'That
makes a change.'

    Deborah
said, 'Home-made meringue with strawberries, anyone?'

    Steve
handed over his dish with an eager 'Yes, please.'

    'Ross?'

    He
shook his head and pushed his plate away.

    Jenny
said, 'Why don't we leave this until after? None of us wants to get in a state
over it.'

    'What's
the point? No one ever listens to me anyway.'

    David
said, 'That's not true, Ross. We're your parents, for goodness' sake. If we
didn't make the best decision now you'd blame us for the rest of your life.'

    'Yeah,
you know best about everything, don't you?' He got up from his chair and headed
for the French doors.

    'Ross?
Where are you going?'

    'Nowhere.'

    He
slammed out on to the patio and strode off up the garden, taking refuge on the
area of lawn beyond the shrubs, out of sight.

    David,
who had been staring at the table in an effort to avoid erupting, looked up and
started out of his seat. 'I can't allow that kind of behaviour.'

    'Leave
him. Please. Just give him a moment.'

    'You
want him to get away with that? What sort of message does that send?'

    Deborah
and Steve exchanged a look. She said, 'Why don't you have these strawberries
first? He'll calm down in a minute.'

    David
grunted and reluctantly sat back down. 'Why you didn't let me send him to
Radley in the first place . . .'

    Jenny
dropped her spoon and glared at him. Steve shot out a hand and put it on her
knee. She pushed it away. 'Why didn't I? They might have made an even better
job of screwing him up than we have.' She shoved away from the table and went
after Ross.

    She
found him sitting on the bench in the secret part of the garden she had
insisted on when they'd had it landscaped soon after they moved in. The fantasy
had been of little moments a deux, hidden from the nanny and next door by a
dense hedge of conifers and from the three adjacent gardens by a semicircular
screen of bamboo. She and David had sat here together perhaps once. Its main
use had been as a place to storm off to and sulk.

    'Any
room for me?'

    He
shrugged, then moved over a touch, making a space. She sat next to him, neither
of them saying anything for a moment. She knew how he felt: being judged by
David was crushing. It had been bad enough as a wife, as a son it must be
devastating.

    'Sorry
these things always end up so bad-tempered. I didn't mean it to . . . You know
what your dad's like. He doesn't realize how harsh he sounds.'

    Ross
picked distractedly at a splinter of wood. 'You don't have to make excuses for
him.'

    'He's
concerned for you, that's all.'

    'Huh.'

    Jenny
studied his face. Even in the six months since she'd left home he'd changed.
You couldn't call him a boy any more. He was a young man, six foot tall and
with his father's athletic build. He'd be a real catch one day, but still had
several painful years of confidence building ahead of him.

    'I
haven't spoken to your dad about this, but I was wondering if you might like to
come and live with me while you're at sixth form.'

    'Go
to college over there? Forget it.'

    'No,
in Bristol. I'd drop you off on my way in. You'll be able to drive yourself
soon, anyway.'

    He
glanced up at her, wary. 'You'd get me a car?'

    'Nothing
flash, but yeah, why not? You could have friends to stay . . .' God, she was
being manipulative, but she couldn't help it. It was working. She had his
attention for the first time in months. 'Are you still seeing Gina?'

    'Lisa.'

    'Sorry—'

    'S'all
right.' He continued picking at the bench. She watched him turning the offer
over in his mind, weighing the inconvenience of living out in the wilds against
escaping from his father. 'You mean she could come over at weekends and that?'

    'Whoever
you want, as long as they're not too crazy.'

    She
seemed to be winning. He nodded. 'I'll think about it.'

    'So
what about sixth form? Your dad wants you to go to interview at Clifton
College.'

    'I'm
not moving. Anyway, why would they want me?'

    'He went
there.'

    Ross
kicked at the weedless turf. 'You're really selling it to me.'

    'He
thinks you'll get the best teaching.'

    'I
don't want a life like his. He hasn't even got one.'

    Jenny's
phone rang. She took it out of her jeans pocket and checked the screen, it was
Alison. 'Won't be a moment. It's work.' She clicked the answer button. 'Hello,
Alison.'

    'Sorry
to disturb you, Mrs Cooper - Professor Lloyd just called. He's done the post-mortem
on Katy Taylor and wants to talk to you.'

    'Can't
he call?'

    'He
asked if you could go over and see him. I think he wants to show you
something.'

    'Now?'

    'That's
what he said.'

    'OK. Tell
him I'm coming from Bristol. I'll be about an hour.'

    Ross
got up from the seat.

    Jenny
said, 'I'll call you when I'm on my way,' and rang off. 'Ross, I've finished.
Let's talk.'

    'You've
got to work.'

    He
started back to the house.

    The
lunch had achieved nothing. No decisions had been made about Ross's future and
David and Jenny had parted on acrimonious terms. Ross refused to come out of
his room to say goodbye and only one of Deborah's meringues got eaten. If it
hadn't been for Steve, Jenny felt sure it would have ended in an ugly scene.
She had always hated the house and the swanky kitchen, but seeing another,
younger woman so at home there had made her feel irrationally excluded and
resentful. She was wearing
her
apron, for God's sake, and cooking with
her
pans. And now the dutiful, domesticated Deborah would be sent upstairs
to talk Ross round as the voice of reason.

    Steve
had managed to survive the ordeal on only one glass of wine and was now
gallantly chauffeuring her to Newport while she sat staring out at the motorway
in moody silence.

    'I
can see why you two split.'

    Jenny
was looking at cows standing in a field, wondering whether they ever got used
to the traffic. 'Why's that?'

    'Every
time he poured wine he put a stopper back on the bottle.'

    'I
didn't notice.'

    'You're
so used to it you don't see it any more. And when they cleared the plates he
made her rinse them down before putting them in the dishwasher. Didn't even say
anything, just with this look he gave her.'

    'Did
she?'

    'No
question.'

    'He's
a control freak.'

    'I
guess you wouldn't want a flaky heart surgeon.'

    'Someone
must appreciate him.'

    Steve
thought about that for a moment, then said, 'Can I ask you something? What's it
like having sex with a man like that?'

    'You
shouldn't be having those kind of thoughts, it's bad karma.'

    Steve
refused her offer to come with her to the mortuary in Newport General, an
imposing Victorian building on a hillside overlooking the city. She left him in
the car smoking a cigarette, listening to
The Best of Jimi Hendrix,
and
promised she wouldn't be long. Steve said to take as long as she needed, he
wasn't in any hurry.

    The
mortuary was in the traditional place, down in the basement through an unmarked
door which had to be buzzed open for her. She had read that while body
snatching was rare, stealing of jewellery, particularly rings from corpses, was
commonplace. There were stories of fingers cropped off with secateurs. The
Newport mortuary, like that at the Vale, had a storage problem. Following signs
to the autopsy room, she passed along a badly lit subterranean corridor.
Stretched out down the wall to her right was a line of gurneys parked nose to
tail, each carrying a familiar, body-shaped white plastic envelope. She tried
not to look, concentrating instead on the tangle of exposed pipes and wires
which snaked along the wall to her left: the ragged arteries of the ageing
hospital. Her footsteps echoing off the grubby tiled walls was the only sound.