The Coroner (38 page)

    Jenny
said, 'Could it be that they weren't received then, they just look like they
were?'

    Mason
said, 'I've no idea. I'm not an expert in these matters.'

    Hartley
interrupted with, 'I don't know quite what you're suggesting, ma'am, but the
transmission dates of emails have long been accepted in the criminal courts as
thoroughly reliable evidence.'

    Jenny
said, 'I will decide on the reliability of evidence, Mr Hartley. For the moment
I'm keeping an open mind.' Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tara Collins
smile.

    Darren
Hogg looked as if he spent his life in a dark room surrounded by monitors. He
had a junk-food complexion and acne scars and stood in the witness box wearing
his liveried uniform with the pride you sometimes saw in young policemen. Jenny
thought: a career security guard with an unhealthy fantasy life.

    She
said, 'You were on duty in the camera control room during the early hours of 14
April?'

    'I
was.'

    'What
could you see of the male house unit?'

    'Only
the entrance, ma'am. The camera in the main corridor had been playing up for a
week or so.'

    'What
had been done about that?'

    'I'd
sent an email to the camera company and so had my colleague.'

    'You're
sure you sent that email?'

    'Yes,
ma'am.'

    'Why
didn't you report the fault by telephone?'

    'We
weren't meant to use the outside line - cost.'

    'Had
you told the director's office?'

    He
hesitated slightly. 'I think my colleague did, yeah. He was on days that week.'

    'But
you're not sure?'

    'No.'

    'You'd
agree it was an unsatisfactory state of affairs not having that camera
working?'

    'Of course.
But cameras have problems all the time.'

    'You're
sure that there is no tape covering that corridor for the early hours of the
14th?'

    'Absolutely.'

    'I
want you to think about how serious a question this is before you answer, Mr
Hogg . . . Has anyone, at any time, asked you to destroy, alter, lose or
otherwise interfere with any images that might be of use to this inquest?'

    He
thought for a moment and shook his head. 'Nope.'

    Jenny
glanced at the jury. A couple of the men appeared doubtful.

    'Say
the camera had been working, what would you expect to have seen?'

    'Not
a lot. Just the night officer making his checks.'

    'How
often?'

    'Every
half-hour.'

    'The night
officer has to walk up and down that corridor, checking through every window
every thirty minutes throughout the night?'

    'Yes.'

    'From
what you've seen, do they sometimes miss a check or two, doze off in the staff
room?'

    'Not
in my experience.'

    'Never?'

    'No.'

    The
sceptical jurors both smiled. Others traded glances. Hogg was the kind of guy
who'd sell his mother for the chance to wear a uniform and they'd rumbled him.

    Jenny
said, 'I simply don't believe that's true, Mr Hogg - you've honestly never
known a night officer miss a check?'

    'Never,
ma'am.'

    She
heard one of the jurors say, 'Yeah, right.'

    The
final witness of the day was Kevin Stewart, the secure care officer who was on
night duty in the male house unit. A wiry, fair-headed man in his forties with
a strong note of Glasgow in his accent. His suit jacket hung off his bony
shoulders; his shirt collar was too big for his neck. Jenny felt her heartbeat
pick up as she watched him reading the oath. This was the one she had to nail.
She touched the two tablets floating loose in her pocket and wished she felt
calmer. She reached for her glass but stopped herself, noticing a tremor in her
hand. Stewart laid down the oath card and turned to face her. She swallowed,
forcing the saliva down her dry throat.

    They
went through the initial formalities. Stewart said he had worked in young
offenders' institutions and secure training centres for nearly twenty years,
the last two at Portshead Farm. His record was exemplary and no complaints had
ever been upheld against him. He normally worked the day shift, but due to
several members of staff being off sick he had been working nights for a week
when Danny died. He was aware that Danny had been on observation when he first
came in and that he had been refusing to leave his room except to eat. He said
it was the way with lots of kids, especially ones in for the first time. How
staff dealt with it was to let them acclimatize for a week or so. Even the most
difficult cases would get bored of sitting in their room by then.

    Jenny
said, 'Had you spoken to Danny Wills?'

    'A
couple of times when I came on shift at ten. I got there at a few minutes to,
helped round up the stragglers.'

    'Did
you see him on the night of the 13th?'

    'Briefly.
He was in his room - he told me his toilet was blocked. I checked it and saw it
was emptying slowly. All right for liquids but not for solids, if you know what
I mean. I told him I'd get on to maintenance.'

    'There
were two rooms free in the unit that night, why didn't you move him to one of
those?'

    'It
wasn't a big deal that couldn't wait till morning. It didn't seem worth the
paperwork.'

    'When
did you call maintenance?'

    'Straight
after lights out. I left a message on the voicemail.'

    Jenny
made a note. 'Did any of the day staff say anything about him to you?'

    'Dave
Whiteside, he was on the evening shift, said something about beginning to mix,
coming down to the common room in the evening. You'll see it in the comments
section on his file.'

    Jenny
dug out her copy of Danny's trainee progress file and checked the daily log. It
confirmed that he had spent the day in his room, gone to the canteen for
evening meal and 'socialized in the common room during the evening'. The entry
was signed D. Whiteside.

    Jenny
said, 'What happened at lights out?'

    'I
make sure everyone's in bed and turn out the lights with the master switch.'

    'Were
the rooms then in darkness?'

    'Not
completely. They've got a little night light in the ceiling so we can see in.'

    'How
many staff were on duty in the male house unit that night?'

    'Just
me through to wake-up at seven a.m. Sometimes if we had a difficult bunch we'd
have two on, but these were quiet. You'd usually find two staff in the female
unit - some reason they kick up more at night.'

    'What
did you do for those ten hours, Mr Stewart?'

    'Walked
the corridor every thirty minutes, watched some TV, generally kept an eye on
things.'

    'Any
problems?'

    'No.
It was a quiet night.'

    'You
know that the pathologist found that Danny died between two and three a.m.'

    'So I
understand.'

    'Even
if it was closer to three, that's nine trips up and down the corridor you made
without seeing his body hanging from the bars at the window.'

    'I
explained that at the first inquest, ma'am. I looked in through the window in
the door and saw what I thought was him lying under the covers. Turned out he'd
stuffed some clothes under there. And I couldn't have seen him hanging anyway,
because he was hidden by the wardrobe.'

    'I
inspected his room last Friday, Mr Stewart. The wardrobe is bolted to the wall
next to the window. It doesn't stick far enough out into the room to hide a
body, even a small one.'

    'Did
they not tell you, ma'am? We've only had them fixed to the wall since. It was
one thing we learned that night - he was a clever wee lad, tugged it out far
enough to hide him. You hear it again and again in my line of work - when
someone's going to do it, something gets hold of them. A kid who couldnae do up
his shoelaces is suddenly plaiting ropes and tying sheep shanks.'

    Another
pill dulled some of the anxiety which had consumed her. When it was this acute,
the physical symptoms were the worst. She had walked back across the city
centre to the office having to stop every few hundred yards to catch her
breath. Her diaphragm was so tight each intake of air was a conscious effort.
At five-minute intervals her entire nervous system stuttered like an electric
light flickering in a storm. When it happened she had a sinking sensation as if
she had missed her step and had started to fall.

    Another
half-tablet was pushing it, but it loosened her chest a little and let her
breathe more easily again. She sat on the edge of her desk and closed her eyes,
trying to relax, to feel her limbs heavy, imagining Dr Travis's deep,
reassuring voice.

    The
day's evidence couldn't have been any worse. Simone's and Ruth Turner's claims
that Danny had been suicidal had been painted by Hartley as part of a failed
attempt to keep him from the punishment he deserved. Nurse Raven had emerged as
a concerned and competent professional who had acted with excessive caution in
keeping Danny in an observation cell. UKAM had somehow planted emails on
Sectec's computers and Kevin Stewart had denied her the one point which could
still have left the door open to a verdict of neglect. Nothing she could throw
at Elaine Lewis would be enough to avoid the inevitable verdict of suicide. Her
only hope lay with the sixteen-year-old Terry Ryan, the occupant of the
next-door cell, but since he'd shown no interest in making a written statement
despite numerous calls to his home, she had no idea what he might say.

    What angered
her most was the fact that she had believed it would be any different. How
deluded must she have been? It made her think that somewhere along the line she
had lost touch with reality, leaving her stranded in a world of her own making,
that David and Ross just did their best to humour her.

    She
heard the key in the outer door. It opened and shut. Alison took a few steps,
then stopped. Jenny sensed her standing, unmoving, in the middle of reception. Neither
spoke. The silence seemed to last for more than a minute before Alison moved
towards her office door and knocked.

    Her
nerves spasmed at the sound. 'Yes?'

    Alison
entered, looking as if she had just heard tragic news. She had been crying and with
her make-up washed away her eyes were pale and hollow. The two women looked at
each other, neither knowing how to start.

    Alison
found her voice first. It was quiet and full of regret. 'I have a confession to
make, Mrs Cooper . . . I'm afraid I did something I shouldn't have. I let my
feelings get the better of me.' She unzipped the briefcase she had had with her
at court and brought out a document. 'I found this after Mr Marshall died. It
was locked in the drawer where you found the Katy Taylor file . . .' She handed
it over.

    It
was the best part of an inch thick, spiral-bound and marked 'Confidential'. The
title read 'Official Tender for a Secure Training Centre to Service Bristol and
the South-West Region'. Beneath it, the corporate ident of UKAM Secure
Solutions Ltd. Inside, over a hundred and twenty pages, were detailed plans and
costings for a juvenile detention facility designed to accommodate up to five
hundred inmates. It was to be located on a twenty-five-acre brown-field site to
the north-east of the city now owned by the local authority where a cigarette
factory had once stood. Jenny flicked to the final summary and saw the build
cost: eight million pounds. The annual running cost for each of the first five
years was thirty million. The final page was dated 18 January.

    She
closed the cover and placed the document on the desk, her drum-tight diaphragm
holding her lungs in a vice. 'Why didn't you show this to me before?'