The Coroner (54 page)

    'I'll
be in touch.'

    Steve
said, 'Well?'

    She
smiled and handed him the phone. 'You've got a chance to show me what you're
really made of. What's the time?'

    'Two
o'clock. How?'

    'I'll
tell you while you're driving me to the station. First help me put some decent
clothes on.'

    'Where
are you going?'

    'London.'

    'In
your state?'

    'I'll
survive.'

    She
called Simon Moreton's office from the car and was answered by a PA, who said
he was in a meeting until the end of the day, could she try again on Monday?
Jenny said there was an urgent letter on his fax machine that she needed to
discuss with him this afternoon; it concerned a high-profile inquest that was
due to resume on Monday. When the PA said she doubted if he'd have time to read
a letter, let alone arrange an unscheduled meeting, Jenny said, 'If you'd be
kind enough to tell him that Jenny Cooper, the Severn Vale District Coroner,
will be in his office by five p.m., I'm sure he'll find a moment.'

    Selborne
House was one of the strip of identically soulless glass and concrete offices
that lined Victoria Street on the approach to Parliament Square. It was the
kind of building that would normally have made her claustrophobic, but the
single temazepam she'd taken during the journey was keeping panic at bay. Her
nerves weren't as steady as they had been on antidepressants and beta blockers,
but she was at least feeling emotions she could distinguish. The PA, a
tight-lipped woman in her late fifties, met her in reception and walked briskly
to the lift with the minimum of chat, passing no comment on Jenny's bruised
face or the painful awkwardness with which she limped behind her. Ascending to
the fifth floor in impatient silence, Jenny sensed her acute disapproval,
leaving her in no doubt that her arrival was being treated as a rogue and
eccentric event.

    She
had been waiting nearly twenty minutes when Moreton arrived, a fresh copy of
the letter from the Newport branch of the Crown Prosecution Service in his
hand. He looked tired at the end of a long week, and seemed equally troubled
and embarrassed by her presence. Like his PA, no mention of her battered face.

    'I
see you've had some good news, Mrs Cooper.' He dithered over where to sit at
the large conference table, settling on the chairman's seat at its head. 'Do
you have any notion what prompted it?'

    'I
think they must have believed I told them the truth. I didn't know what my
guest was smoking in his cigarettes.'

    Moreton
gave an amused smile. 'Even I know what marijuana smells like.'

    'Smoking
it seems to be a requirement for high government office these days - seven
cabinet ministers at the last count.'

    'Politicians
come and go, Mrs Cooper. A coroner is a permanent fixture.'

    Staying
calm, surprising herself, Jenny said, 'A coroner can only be removed from
office for misbehaviour in the discharge of her duty. I am facing no criminal
charges and I have not misbehaved in my professional capacity.'

    'A
moot point.'

    'Could
you be specific?'

    'You
were about to make public a commercially sensitive tender document. You would
have jeopardized our entire prison-building programme. At the very least,
tenders would have had to be resubmitted and the public would have borne the
cost.'

    Jenny
felt like telling him what she thought of his building programme, but contained
her anger enough to reply, 'I sincerely apologize for that error of judgement,
Mr Moreton, and would ask you to put that down to overzealousness at the start
of my tenure. I can assure you that I won't be making any such mistakes in
future.'

    'I'd
like to accept that reassurance, Mrs Cooper, but when a coroner makes such a
grave miscalculation . . .'

    'I
have given over fifteen years' public service working for a provincial local
authority in childcare law when I could have made three times my salary in
private practice. No one could accuse me of not having a sense of duty.'

    'Of
course not.'

    'I
admit, I may have been swayed by emotion, but if I've learned one thing from
this experience it's that being a coroner requires a level of detachment that I
haven't been used to. I will endeavour to exercise that in future.' She held
his gaze, aware of his eyes dipping to the inch of cleavage she was showing,
and gave him the subtle look which said she didn't mind.

    'We
are aware — ' He faltered slightly, his face pinking. 'Your records show that
you had some "personal" difficulties towards the end of your time in
your previous position.'

    'I
had had a serially unfaithful husband who sued me for custody of our son. It
was a miracle I could work at all.' She kept her eyes on him.

    'I
see.'

    'I'm not
simply asking to be reinstated; I'd welcome your help and encouragement over
the coming months. A coroner can feel very isolated with no immediate colleague
to support her.'

    Moreton
nodded slowly. Jenny could tell he was already picturing day trips to Bristol,
lunch on expenses, touching her legs under the table. He said, 'What happened
to your face, if you don't mind my asking?'

    'I
had an encounter with burglars. So much for retreating to the country.'

    'How
dreadful.'

    'Nothing
broken. It could have been worse.'

    'Yes
. . .' He glanced at his watch. 'You must be in a need of a drink. I don't have
to be on my way for half an hour.'

    'Maybe
just one.'

    He
took her to a wine bar across the road and bought a thirty- pound bottle of
Pouilly Fume which came in an ice bucket. Out of the office he wasn't bad
company, pointing out the different cliques who occupied separate corners of
the bar: the civil servants in cheap suits and no ties, the TV people in
designer glasses and goatees who weren't allowed to dress a day over thirty no
matter how old they were, and the handful of politicians and their snaky
advisers who were always either on the phone or looking over their companions'
shoulders for more important ears to bend.

    It
wasn't what she had expected of high public office, showing off her assets to a
repressed civil servant, leading him on, but it did the trick. Moreton put in a
call to the Lord Chancellor's office and, as he poured out the last of the
bottle, got a call back saying there was no objection to her reinstatement.

    Looking
at him over her glass, Jenny said, 'You won't stop me concluding the Danny
Wills inquest next week? I feel it's the least we do for his mother to bring it
all to an end.'

    'I'm
sure you'll handle it expertly, Jenny.'

    She
felt the warmth of his knee hovering an inch or two away from hers. She moved
slightly, allowing them to touch for a moment.

    Alison's
husband answered the phone and said she wasn't well, not feeling herself at all.
He was delighted to hear that things were returning to normal but he wasn't
sure she'd make it in for a few days, they'd have to see how she was. He was
kindly and apologetic but Jenny detected a trace of exasperation, his ambiguous
use of words giving away the story: Alison sunk in a depression he couldn't
understand or penetrate, telling him just to leave her alone when he came to
the bedroom door with his latest theories on what was ailing her.

    Without
her help it would take the whole weekend to organize a reconvened inquest for
Monday, but if she left it any later the element of surprise would be gone and
the witnesses she wanted back would have time to get their stories straight.
She wanted the jury to see them on the back foot, to watch them stumble and
then confess as she ripped the truth out of them, getting the job done before
anything else could derail her.

    During
the train journey back to Bristol she tried to raise someone from Grantham's
department with authority to let her back in her office. Getting only a
succession of answer machines, she finally reached an architect from the office
upstairs at his home. Amazing herself at the ease with which she could lie, she
explained that she'd had her bag stolen in a burglary and needed to get through
the front door to have the locks changed before the thieves struck again. It
worked. She collected a copy of the front door key from him at his mews house
in Clifton village, then jumped back into a cab to meet with an emergency
locksmith at the office. By ten p.m. she was inside and back in charge.

    It
was gone midnight when she hobbled into the house with a holdall full of files,
aching all over and feeling anxious again. She hadn't taken any pills for over
eight hours. During the taxi ride back she'd found herself hoping Steve would
be there waiting for her, but there was only the lingering smell of his
cigarette smoke and a scribbled note:
Hope it's good news. You know where to
find me. S x.
She studied the
x,
looking for clues as to whether he'd
written it without thinking or it really meant something. She was tempted to
drive over now but thought it might look too eager, build up his ego when he
should be feeling ashamed. She'd wait for him to come past tomorrow, and when
he did she'd set another condition for sharing her bed - he'd have to get a
telephone.

    She
was eating a late breakfast at the table on the lawn and leaving a message for
Ross with the good news when a police squad car pulled up on the cart track.
Williams climbed out of the passenger door. The female constable who had been
one of the search team earlier in the week waited in the driver's seat.
Williams apologized for disturbing her but thought she'd want to know that he
had a lead on her intruders: a black Mercedes 3 20 had been clocked on a speed
camera further up the valley a few minutes after she'd said the break-in
happened. There were two men in the front seat and the car had been hired from
a firm in Bristol. It was paid for by a company credit card: the firm was
called TRK Ltd. It was a shell with no official turnover, but its sole director
was a one-time employee of a private security company wholly owned by UKAM.
Williams had a couple of men out looking for him now.

    Jenny
said, 'You'd think they'd have covered their tracks more carefully.'

    'They
were banking on you not making a fuss, but to be on the safe side you might
want to spend the next couple of nights in a hotel, at least until we catch up
with them. It might be an idea to tell your son to keep a lookout, too.'

    She
nodded, a wave of anxiety passing through her as she realized the enormity of
what she was taking on. 'I'm planning on trying to resume my inquest on Monday.
It's going to ruffle a lot of feathers. I'm summoning the director of Portshead
Farm, some of the staff, Frank Grantham, Dr Peterson . . .'

    'I've
been thinking about that, Mrs Cooper. I was wondering if you might consider a
change of venue?'

    'I'm
not even sure what the venue is yet. I lost my courtroom when I was suspended.'

    'Would
it be fair to say that you're anticipating a certain lack of cooperation?'

    'What
did you have in mind?'

    'Let's
imagine you held it on this side of the water, in Chepstow, say. My boys could make
sure your witnesses turn up, and if any of them drag their heels it gives us
the chance to go and get them. And once we're lawfully on a premises—'

    'You
can look around all you like.'

    Williams
smiled.

    She
packed a suitcase with enough clothes for several days and loaded them, along
with her files and textbooks, into the boot of her Golf. She braced herself to
call David and tried to explain the situation as calmly as possible. He replied
coldly that he'd never realized the job of coroner could be so eventful,
implying that only she, the ultimate drama queen, could have contrived to make
it so. She would have pointed that out to him if she hadn't also detected a
note of jealousy: if his screwy ex-wife was presiding over important and
dangerous cases it meant she was in danger of eclipsing him. Which one of them
would have their son's respect then?