The Disappeared (38 page)

'I'll
get to them later.'

Jenny
braced herself and went through to her office.

Moreton
set down his newspaper and greeted her warmly, but with a certain reserve.
'Jenny. How lovely to see you again.'

He
extended a hand.

'Simon.'

'It's
been far too long. When was it, August?'

'It
must have been.' Jenny had done her best to forget the summer drinks party the
Ministry had held in the Middle Temple Hall. Moreton had drunk too much cheap
champagne - as had she - and made a clumsily veiled pass, mentioning several
times that his wife was in France with the children. Unluckily for him, it was
chiefly the mention of his family which had stopped her from being tempted.

'You
didn't get my phone messages?' he said.

'I
was out until late last night,' she said, taking off her coat.

'Never
mind. I'm always glad of the excuse.' He flashed a flirtatious smile and
settled back in his seat.

'I
can guess what brings you here.' She pulled her chair away from her desk,
placing it at an informal angle. 'I presume you've heard about Mrs Jamal?'

'That
would be something of an understatement even by civil service standards. I kept
Gillian Golder and her people at bay - didn't want to put you under any undue
stress - but blind panic wouldn't be a misdescription of their current state.'

'Do
they have any theories about where the caesium came from?'

'Theories,
yes; suspects, none at all. I believe they've pulled a few people in, including
one of your witnesses.'

'Anwar
Ali?'

'Sounds
familiar. But I don't get the impression they're making any ground.' He
shrugged and looked expectantly to her for a contribution.

'I
suppose they're assuming that whoever contaminated her had something to do with
her son - a terrorist cell perhaps.'

'I'm
sure that's the thrust of it.'

'Do
they think it was murder?'

'It's
being considered.'

'All
I know is that she had become convinced she was being watched. She reported it
to the police. And around the time she died the caretaker's wife saw a
suspicious man in the lobby of the building who pushed past her. My officer
spoke to her; she'll have given a statement to the police too.'

'Yes,
I had a bit of a briefing yesterday, got the general gist.' He tapped the arms
of his chair with his fingers, a sign that he was being forced unwillingly to
the point. 'Look, I know all about the sanctity of a coroner's inquest, but
they are rather hoping that any evidence you might have would be shared.'

'I
don't have any.'

'I
understand you adjourned your inquest to pursue further lines of inquiry.'

McAvoy's
parting words echoed back to her. She could mention Sarah Levin, Anna Rose,
Madog and Tathum, but where would that leave her inquiry? They'd get to her
witnesses first and contaminate them like they had Mrs Jamal.
Christ
,
she was thinking like McAvoy now. Why not tell just tell him everything, hand
over responsibility?

'Well?'
Moreton said gingerly. 'Did they yield anything?'

'No.'
Her denial emerged without conscious thought.

Moreton
was disappointed. 'That's not exactly right, is it, Jenny? You've been sniffing
after a car. Your officer's taken a statement from a witness.'

'You've
been interrogating my officer? You've no right to do that. My inquiries are
carried out in the strictest confidence.'

He
spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. 'I'm afraid in a situation like
this the rules have to bend a little - surely you of all people understand
that.'

Defiantly,
Jenny said, 'If you've been sent to mine me for information ahead of my
inquest, you can forget it. Gillian Golder and her people can sit in the public
gallery like anyone else.'

'In
any normal case I could see your point, but there's someone running about out
there with radioactive material. Who knows what they might be doing? Certainly
not waiting to be caught out by your inquest.'

'I
have no information to offer on Amira Jamal's death other than what I've told
you. Anyway, it's a police matter.

All
I'm concerned with is finding out what happened to her son.'

'I
must say, I'm very disappointed, Jenny. In this of all cases, I was hoping for
a rather more cooperative attitude. We are all in this struggle together.'

'I
know it's frustrating for your friends to have to accept there are some doors
they can't simply kick down when they choose, but this is one of them. I don't
just have the right, Simon; I have a legal duty to carry out a thorough and
independent
inquiry. I don't even know what you're thinking of coming here like this. You
should be fighting my corner, not theirs.'

Moreton
nodded patiently as if her outburst had gone some way to persuading him. 'I'll
level with you, Jenny. MI5 think there's an argument for seeking a warrant to
search these premises under the Terrorism Act. They'd have done it yesterday,
but I persuaded them you'd voluntarily offer up anything that could possibly be
of use.'

'They'd
do the same for me, would they? They won't even release their files from 2002.'

'I
could suggest they go some way to accommodating that request.'

Jenny
could have picked up the telephone and hurled it into his gutless poor-me
smile, but she held tight and suppressed her fury. It wasn't just that the
Security Services, a branch of the executive, was trying make a coroner into a
puppet; a man whose job it was to defend the principle of judicial independence
was doing his utmost to destroy it. All the fashionable talk of friendly
cooperation across the branches of state meant only one thing: all power to the
most powerful. Tyranny.

Looking
into Moreton's weak face with its superficial charm, any lingering doubts were
dispelled.

'If
I don't do my job as it's meant to be done, Simon, there is no rule of law. All
that's left is what's convenient, which is fine until you're branded the
inconvenient one. Mrs Jamal wasn't convenient, nor was properly investigating
her son's death. I'm certainly not convenient, but if you were in a tight spot,
I bet you'd rather have me on your side.'

With
a note of regret, Moreton said, 'If only all aspects of your character inspired
such confidence.'

'I'm
resuming my inquest on Wednesday. And it's not going to end until I've found
out what happened to Nazim Jamal.'

To
his credit, Moreton knew when he was beaten. He offered no threats or
inducements, no warnings of retribution: Jenny had faced him down and won.
With a limp handshake and a polite goodbye to Alison he left with nothing more
than the name and occupation of Frank Madog.

Emboldened
by her victory, Jenny stepped out into reception and followed the sounds of
clinking crockery to the kitchenette. Alison glanced up guiltily from her
ritual tea- making.

'Can
I get you anything, Mrs Cooper?'

'You
told Moreton about Madog.'

'He
didn't give me any choice. He said I had to.'

'Had
to what?'

'Tell
him what more we'd found.'

'Did
he say what would happen if you didn't?'

'I'm
sorry, Mrs Cooper, but who am I to contradict him?'

'You
could have waited for me.'

'He
wouldn't let me. He insisted. He said there would be implications.'

'He
threatened you?'

'Not
exactly.'

'Did
he say why he wanted this information?'

'No
. . .'

'You
just gave it up without a struggle.'

'It
wasn't like that. He said that the Security Services had spoken to him. They'd
told him Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan were involved with terrorists. They think
the same ones might even have killed Mrs Jamal.'

'Did
he offer any evidence for this?'

'Maybe
if you'd been here —?’

'What
else did you tell him?' Jenny snapped, cutting her off.

'Nothing.
I didn't even mention Dr Levin's medical records.'

'So
you didn't trust him that much?'

'I'm
not a lawyer. I didn't know what to think.'

'Who
else have you been speaking to - Dave Pironi?'

'Of
course not.'

'It's
a reasonable question. You pray with him.'

Alison's
defensiveness hardened to anger. 'With respect, Mrs Cooper, that's my private
business and nothing to do with you.'

'It
is if it affects my investigation. Have you ever stopped to think that he might
be using you? For all I know he was personally involved in whatever happened to
Nazim Jamal. Isn't it a coincidence that when it comes back to light he casts
himself as your spiritual mentor?'

'You
don't know what you're talking about.'

'I
know about your daughter.'

Alison
froze and stared at her. 'Really? And what exactly do you think you know about
my daughter, Mrs Cooper?'

'I've
heard you on the phone to your husband. She's living with another woman. What's
Pironi told you - that she can be healed by the power of prayer?'

'I'll
tell you about my daughter,' Alison said. 'When she was seventeen years old, a
young man forced himself on her. You can call it rape, if you like. For two
years she would hardly leave the house. And even then she wouldn't be alone in
a room with another man, even her father. And Dave Pironi didn't seek me out. I
went to him. I'd seen him lose his wife to cancer and cope with his son being
out in Afghanistan; I wanted to know what he'd got that I hadn't. It may not
suit your way of seeing the world, but you of all people should know that the
truth isn't always what you'd like it to be.'

The
kettle clicked off as it came to the boil. With trembling hands Alison poured
water over her tea bag and doused it with milk. 'I got your copies of Dr
Levin's records, by the way. She was diagnosed with chlamydia in April 2002.
Too late, poor girl. She lost her fallopian tubes to it.'

'Where
were you when this blackout happened?'

'In
my office . . .'

'You
became unconscious?'

'Not
quite. My heart started racing. It wouldn't stop. I couldn't breathe, couldn't
move, not for half an hour or more.'

'And
then you called me?'

'Yes.'

'And
then?

'I
took some pills and carried on working.'

'What
pills?'

Jenny
paused and briefly considered lying but couldn't summon the energy to face the
cross-examination that would inevitably follow. 'Xanax.'

Dr
Allen's registered no surprise. He simply made a note. 'In addition to your
other medication?'

'No
... I stopped taking that several days ago.'

'For
any particular reason?'

Jenny
faltered. 'I thought it would make me more effective, give me some passion
back.'

He
nodded with no hint of judgement. 'Did it work?'

'I
suppose it heightened everything.'

'Did
you experience mood swings?'

'I'm
not sure.'

'Erratic
behaviour?'

She
cast her mind back over the past several days. 'I felt driven. Less inhibited .
. . but anxious, on edge.'

'Yes,
you would have done.' He gave her a look as if to say he was sorry he hadn't
been there to intervene.

If
I was him I'd be furious, Jenny thought. I certainly wouldn't have come running
all the way from Cardiff to Chepstow because an irresponsible woman had
deliberately ditched her medication. But that's precisely what he had done, and
not for the first time. She felt ashamed of herself. Her stupidity seemed all
the more unforgivable in his benign, unruffled presence.

'Tell
me what was going on just before the attack,' Dr Allen said.

Jenny
cringed. 'I argued with my officer. She'd given out information I thought she
shouldn't have . . . and then I accused her of something.' Her voice deserted
her.

'What?'

Jenny
forced the saliva pooling in her mouth down her throat.

Dr
Allen smiled calmly. 'Take your time.'

'She
had an issue with her daughter . . . She's been preoccupied with it. I was
annoyed that it was affecting her work, but it turned out I'd misread it all.
I'd leapt to the wrong conclusions ... I hurt her badly.'

'Do
you want to tell me what the issue was?'

'Not
particularly.'

'I
think you should, Jenny. It might help.'

She
rolled her head from side to side trying to release the tightness in the back
of her neck.