The Coroner (26 page)

    Professor
Lloyd's evidence had proved to her satisfaction that Katy was violently
restrained, hit in the face and injected with a lethal dose of heroin. This
might or might not have taken place where her body was found, but it seemed
likely that it had happened elsewhere and her body was dumped or, more
accurately, carefully arranged in the dense undergrowth. This meant that her
attacker or attackers had a good deal of local knowledge - the location was
obscure - which might support the theory that she was murdered by a man who
used prostitutes; but why the violence if she was a willing sexual participant?
In any event, her death probably took place on Tuesday 24 April and she went
missing from home five days after her release from Portshead Farm. The police
would now be concentrating their efforts on tracing her movements and contacts
during that time. With a bit of luck, Alison would get inside information from
her former colleagues and they would be able to stay abreast of developments.
If evidence turned up which for some reason the police suppressed or failed to
pursue, Jenny would investigate personally.

    Without
drawing too much attention to herself, she would quietly develop a few lines of
enquiry of her own. She wanted to speak to Mr and Mrs Taylor to find out if
they had any clue where Katy might have been on the missing two days. Perhaps
they knew more than they had admitted and for reasons of their own had chosen
to keep certain things to themselves. Now they knew how their daughter had met
her end they would surely be willing to part with anything they had. She also
wanted to speak to Justin Bennett again, to the senior care officer at
Portshead Farm and to Hayley Johnson, Katy's elusive friend, who, Tara had told
her, moved from squat to squat, taking drugs and selling sex to pay for them.

    So
far so good. She had witnesses to seek out and interview, evidence to gather.
Solid, practical actions: tasks that a competent coroner would be expected to
perform.

    Turning
over a page she wrote down three names which represented all that was
disturbing and intangible about the case: Danny Wills, Peterson, Harry
Marshall.

    Danny's
connection with Katy was one she could legitimately explore. As they had met in
the past and as the evidence proved Katy had taken drugs while at Portshead
Farm, it was logical to suppose there might be some drugs-related connection
between them. Perhaps they were both in debt to the same pusher. Collecting
money by violent means, even murder, was becoming commonplace in the city.
Hayley Johnson might be able to help with an insight into the teenage
underworld. It was one Jenny knew to be labyrinthine in its complexity and
operatic in its melodrama; its loyalties, fears and feuds could only be
understood with inside knowledge.

    Peterson's
post-mortem examination remained an enigma. Even setting aside the fact that he
didn't commit his report to paper until she forced him to, it was suspiciously
brief. He had been very skilful in praising Professor Lloyd in court - he
almost had her convinced that he merely made an innocent mistake - but her
impression of him was not of a man who was slapdash. She had met plenty of lazy
professionals in her time, people content to mark time until retirement, but
none of them had still been athletic in their mid forties. He might be
exasperated by, even resigned to, the failings of the NHS, but he still had the
bright eyes of a man open to a new challenge. Katy's case couldn't have failed
to spark his interest. And if he had spotted signs of violence he must have had
a very compelling reason not to mention them. Next to his name Jenny put a
large question mark.

    Harry
Marshall presented another problem. A man who generally swam with the flow, but
who, only a few weeks before signing Katy's death certificate, in flagrant
breach of the regulations, had been threatening to shake the citadel to its
foundations. She drew a connecting line between his name and Peterson's. They
had been close colleagues. They operated on trust. Harry had taken Peterson's
word and their old school system had ticked over for years. It seemed probable
that Peterson was in some way involved in whatever had taken place, or at least
had an inkling, but he was unlikely to talk. Still in mid-career and doubtless
with a wife and family to support and protect, he would do all in his power to
safeguard his position.

    Harry
too, had dependants, everything to live for. There was no reason to think his
death was anything other than tragically untimely, but still, there was a sense
that it was more than mere coincidence. Even heart attacks were rarely entirely
random events. Delve deep enough and you could usually find something which had
triggered a feeling of depression or hopelessness in the deceased; how many men
died in the immediate aftermath of retirement? Jenny paused, put down her pen
and sipped at the cup of tea, now nearly cold, which sat untouched on the desk.
Harry's disorganized files and papers still lay on the floor either side of
her, and in them, possibly, might lie some small clue.

    She
pushed her notes aside and lifted them on to the desk. The accounts file still
waiting for her attention was too dull even to open. She dropped it back on the
floor and turned to Harry's collection of newspaper cuttings in search of a
common thread. She leafed through them. Now and again he was mentioned or
quoted: there were cases of industrial accidents, road deaths, hospital
operations gone tragically wrong, several deaths in custody, a brutal beating
to death of a young black man by police officers and numerous spectacular
suicides. The most recent cuttings related to Danny Wills's death. In all of
them Danny was portrayed as a dangerous young criminal whose end was to be
expected, even applauded. One article, written by a journalist determined to
tar Simone Wills's name, pointed out that she had failed to register the names
of the fathers of three of her children, quoting an acquaintance who implied
their fathers had most likely been Simone's dealers.

    The
fact that Harry had bothered to read and cut out these articles at all said
something, but Jenny couldn't decide what. It might only be that he still
possessed a streak of vanity - the Mick Jagger pout in his college photo suggested
it - and the cuttings boosted his ego. There were no articles, however, about
Katy Taylor's death. Even though the discovery of her body had been reported
widely, he hadn't clipped a single cutting. Perhaps his failure to shake the
citadel to its foundations in the Danny Wills inquest had temporarily deflated
his ego. Or perhaps his mind had been on other things.

    Alison
arrived back from her shopping expedition and bustled in with the news that she
had taken Jenny at her word and ordered two new desks and executive chairs that
were so smart they were going to put the rest of the office to shame. She'd
made a few calls on the way and arranged for some decorators to come and quote,
people she'd used on her own house who'd give them a good price.

    Jenny
let the stream of trivia wash over her and then, when Alison had finished,
said, 'I'd like you to get hold of Harry Marshall's medical records.'

    Alison
seemed shocked by the request. 'What for?'

    'I'm
not sure.'

    'But
you haven't got any power to. You're not investigating his death.'

    'No,
but I'm investigating Katy's, and his motive for writing her death certificate
is something I need to understand.'

    'He
wouldn't have done anything wrong on purpose, Mrs Cooper. He wasn't like that.
He was a decent man.'

    Gently,
Jenny said, 'I understand your feelings towards him and I promise I'll deal
with this sensitively. They may turn up nothing.'

    'What
do you want me to tell the doctor?'

    'I'll
give you a letter requesting that he produce Mr Marshall's notes. He's under a
legal duty to comply. If there's any problem give me a ring and I'll talk to
him.'

    Alison,
muted now, said, 'What about the decorators?'

    'We'll
see them another day.'

    Steadied
by her third pill in ten hours, Jenny crawled through slow traffic to the
Taylors' house. She rang the bell three times and was about to give up when
Claire answered the door. Her hair was rumpled, as if she had been lying down.
She was wrapped in her usual cardigan and was shivering slightly. Her face was
thinner, too, as if she hadn't been eating.

    'Sorry
to disturb you, Mrs Taylor. I thought I should explain the situation. Is your
husband home?'

    She
shook her head, burying her hands in her cardigan pockets, arms pressed in
closed to her sides.

    'I
could come again when he is.'

    Claire
thought about it for a moment, then took a step back from the door, Jenny's
invitation to come inside.

    She
followed her along the short hallway to the kitchen. Breakfast bowls and cups
lay unwashed in the sink. The atmosphere was heavy and airless, all the windows
firmly closed. Claire motioned her to a chair at the small dining table. Jenny
thanked her and took a seat. Claire remained standing, in the corner by the stove,
putting as much distance between them as she could.

    'You
understand that I've adjourned the inquest to allow the police time to reopen
their inquiry.'

    She
nodded.

    'In
the meantime, I'm afraid Katy's body will have to remain at the mortuary, in
case the pathologists need to run any more tests.'

    Another
nod. Every second spent in Jenny's presence was clearly painful.

    'I'll
also be conducting some enquiries of my own. I'm particularly interested in finding
out who Katy might have been with when she disappeared from home.'

    Claire
shrugged, an almost indifferent gesture. 'She never told us where she was.
Could have been anywhere.'

    'Does
the name Hayley Johnson mean anything to you?'

    Jenny
could see that it did and that the associations weren't good. Claire said, 'I
think I heard her talk to her on the phone. One of her druggy mates, I expect.'

    'You
don't know where I might find her?'

    'Andy
told you where the kids hang out, down the rec ...'

    'Is
that where Katy used to go?'

    'Sometimes
... I think there were older kids involved, too. Girls with their own flats and
that. Katy couldn't wait to get a place on her own.'

    Jenny
offered a smile, relieved that Claire was at last beginning to open up a
little.

    'Did
Katy have a mobile phone?'

    'Andy
wouldn't let her. She had one once but we got a bill for three hundred quid.
That was that. Whether she bought one out of her own money, I don't know. I
think it all went on drugs.'

    'Can
you remember what happened on the Sunday, Mrs Taylor - I'd like to know about
the last time you saw Katy.'

    Claire
looked out of the window, her body language becoming defensive again. Jenny
waited. It was some moments before she spoke.

    'She'd
kicked up on Saturday night about this curfew, but we managed to keep her in.
Andy and I went to bed about eleven. She was already down. I was up at half-six
next morning and she was gone. That was the last we saw of her.'

    'Was
it a big argument on Saturday night?'

    'No
more than usual.'

    'Did
Katy take anything with her, a bag, clothes?'

    Claire
shook her head. 'Not that I could see. Just what they found her in. She might
have had a coat.'

    'What
happened to Katy if she hadn't taken drugs for a while?'

    'She
got difficult, argumentative. She'd hit and scratch, swear . . .'

    'Is
that how she was on Saturday?'

    'It
was just shouting, quite mild really. The fact she actually stayed in ... we
thought the curfew was working, that she was going to stick to it.'

    'Had
you seen a change in her since she came out of Portshead?'

    'Yeah
. . . She was quieter. Definitely quieter. That's the thing . . .' She broke
off and wiped her eyes with her cuff. 'We both really thought we were getting
somewhere.'

    'I'm
sorry to put you through this, but it's very useful for me . . .'

    Claire
nodded and reached for a roll of kitchen towel.

    'Did
you go looking for her on the Sunday?'