The Redeemed (22 page)

It was almost
one o'clock, stomachs would be aching with hunger, but Jenny called the tattoo
artist, Alan Turley, to give his evidence before the lunch break. With a
shaved, tattooed head, and nose and ears peppered with rings and studs, he was
a man Jenny would have crossed the street to avoid. But Turley, who practised
his craft under the name Doc Scratch, was quietly spoken, and gave the
impression that he was a gentle soul, devoted to his work.

Alison handed
him a copy of the photograph of Eva's body. He looked at it briefly and lowered
his head, visibly upset. Jenny took him carefully through the evidence he had
given in a statement he had made to Alison the week before, making sure that he
repeated every detail. He told the jury that Eva had booked the appointment by
telephone several days in advance under the assumed name Louise Pearson. When
she arrived for her appointment she wrote down the words she wanted tattooed
and selected the font from a style book. It took no more than fifteen minutes
to apply and she paid in cash: sixty pounds.

Jenny stole a
glance at Kenneth Donaldson. What she saw in his face surprised her. In the
back of her mind she had invented a story of abuse for Eva's tattoo: riddled
with guilt at her years prostituting herself, it was to be an ironic testament
to the true cause of her pain, a mirror image of the scars that disfigured her
face. Marking her body in this way was a form of therapy: sex could never be
had for the sheer hell of it again; it would always be married with the truth.
But Donaldson's expression didn't fit with her neat version of history. In her
many years in the family courts dealing with men who had done unspeakable
things to their daughters, she had learnt to recognize the benign, detached,
self-deluding smile the guilty ones adopted. There was nothing self-deluding
about Kenneth Donaldson's reaction; no, he was in genuine pain.

'Mr Turley,'
Jenny said, 'did Miss Donaldson talk to you at all while you were drawing the
design?'

'Very little.
She seemed sort of distant.'

'Did you ask
what it meant to her?'

'No. It didn't
seem right.'

'Why was that?'

Sullivan rolled
his eyes. Ed Prince drummed his fingers impatiently. Jenny ignored them and
urged Turley to answer.

'It was just a
feeling,' he said. 'A lot of people want tattoos when they've just lost someone
- it's like a memorial. The young lady felt like that. Sad. As if she'd just
come to the end of something.'

The ranks of
journalists had swelled and the air was stuffy with the smell of too many
bodies crammed tightly together. The Turnbulls and Lennox Strong had yet to
return to their seats. Jenny assumed they were still outside in their vehicle,
being tutored by members of their legal team. The faces of the lawyers in the
courtroom had hardened. All three advocates seemed to have united to form a
single opposing front. Sullivan wore a permanent threatening scowl. Behind him
Ed Prince brooded like a wounded bear. Attempts to secure an emergency
injunction had clearly failed. Jenny had outmanoeuvred them and embarrassed
their clients. Human nature alone dictated that they would be seeking revenge.

Ruth Markham
half-rose from her chair. 'Ma'am, might it be appropriate for Mr Kenneth
Donaldson to give evidence first?'

'Very well,'
Jenny replied.

Donaldson
marched to the front with the cold determination of a battle-scarred general
about to testify before a committee of cowardly politicians. He completed the
opening formalities with no hint of emotion.

The jury listened
respectfully as Donaldson gave a brief, but moving history of his daughter's
early life. She was an only child, he explained, and had been particularly
close to her mother, a successful fashion model turned photographer, whose own
life was cut short by cancer when Eva was only fourteen. It was a loss from
which she would never fully recover. She spent most of her teens at boarding
school, where initially she did well, but as she grew older increasingly found
herself in mild bouts of trouble for all the usual teenage reasons - drink and
boyfriends, though fortunately never any mention of drugs. Despite several near
misses, she clung on and gained a place at Bristol School of Art. It was then
that rebellion tipped over into outright rejection and defiance. Despite his
best efforts to share in his daughter's life, Eva drew further away, refusing
to visit home even in college vacations. He was hurt and confused at her behaviour,
but listened to the advice of friends who told him to trust that in time she
would mature and reconnect.

'I'd send her
money, but she'd post the cheques back or never cash them,' Donaldson said.
'She was very determined to be independent. She kept saying she didn't want to
be reliant on me. I did what any father would do: I told her I would always be
there whenever she needed me.'

'And she
continued to go her own way?' Jenny asked.

'Yes. She would
phone occasionally but never tell me very much. For example, I didn't know she
had abandoned her college course until six months after the event. It was a
schoolfriend of hers who told me that she had left to become involved with
films. I tried to persuade her out of it, but she was twenty years old and
hell-bent on doing as she pleased. She was clearly making plenty of money, so I
didn't exactly have much leverage.'

'Did you have
any contact with your daughter during her career in the film business?'

'Very little.
There'd be the odd birthday card. She came to visit one Christmas, but she was
very remote. I hardly saw her in four years - until she had the accident, in
fact.'

'What happened
then?'

'We spoke more
often. I wouldn't say it was a normal relationship, but things certainly
started to thaw. Once she became involved with the Decency campaign we spoke
quite regularly.' Eva's father hesitated, showing the first hint of emotion
since entering the witness box. 'We started to meet. She would come round every
few weeks. We had dinner once a month, perhaps. Eva talked about her work, her
life at the Mission Church. I was very pleased for her. Her life had a
purpose.'

Jenny said, 'Did
she seem to be having any particular problems in the months before her death?'

'She wasn't
earning what she was used to, but she seemed determined to manage somehow. She
certainly never asked me for support.'

'And
emotionally?'

'She was always
tired; she had a tough schedule of commitments. That apart, I would say she was
the happiest I had seen her in years.'

Jenny looked
down at her notes, feeling three sets of eyes boring into her. She pretended to
read for a moment, preparing to broach the subject she had so far managed to
avoid.

'Mr Donaldson,
we heard evidence this morning that several weeks before she was killed, your
daughter had a tattoo—'

'Yes.'

'Did you know
she'd had it done?'

'No.'

'Have you any
idea why?'

'None. If Mr
Turley's dates are correct, we met the following day - the Saturday. She was in
good spirits.'

'You don't know
what the words mean?'

'No.'

Sullivan
interjected, 'Ma'am, before you go any further—'

'A witness here
has the same protection against self- incrimination as he would in a criminal
court, Mr Sullivan. I presume that's your concern.'

'Yes, ma'am,'
Sullivan barked.

'Then you have
nothing to worry about, have you?'

Reluctantly
giving way, he dropped back into his seat.

Jenny turned to
the witness. 'I am obliged to remind you that you do not have to say anything
which may incriminate you, Mr Donaldson. Nevertheless, I would like to ask you
if your daughter ever suggested to you or anyone else that she believed you had
at some time behaved inappropriately towards her.'

'You're asking
if I interfered with my daughter. Never. Never. Never.' His denial rang around
the silent courtroom. 'Eva undoubtedly slept with young men while she was still
at school, possibly when she was as young as fourteen. But there was never
anything untoward between us.'

'I understand,
Mr Donaldson,' Jenny said gently, 'but my question was whether to your
knowledge she believed there
might
have been.'

'No. Definitely
not. She expressly told me that her decision to appear in pornographic films
was nothing to do with me or how I had behaved. If I'm forced to psychoanalyse,
I would say she was deeply hurt by her mother's death and sought love
elsewhere, but I'm not sure I would even go that far. She made a foolish mistake
and she accepted that.'

'Mr Turley said
that she seemed sad when she came to his studio. He likened her to someone who
was grieving.'

Kenneth
Donaldson then dipped his head as if he had been suddenly assailed by
unexpected emotions. 'I've had very little time to think, but I wonder if the
truth is that Eva was grieving for a lost childhood, a lost innocence even.' He
struggled to find words to express his confusion of feelings. 'These marks that
people make on their bodies strike me as elemental. It's possible she didn't
know the reason for it herself.'

Jenny felt a
pang of sympathy and wrote a note to herself:
At
a loss to explain. Believe his reaction genuine. Unpolished. Thinking aloud.

'Where were you
on the night your daughter was killed, Mr Donaldson?'

'At my home in
Bath. I was entertaining former colleagues, the MD of my former firm and his
wife. I gave details to the police.'

Jenny could have
concluded her questioning there, but her gut told her that having opened
Donaldson up, he had more to offer.

'Is there
anything else you would like to tell the court?'

She saw Ed
Prince trying to catch Donaldson's eye, shaking his head from side to side,
urging him to remain silent. Donaldson ignored him, frowning through painful
memories. 'Only this: that she was a more complicated young woman than I think
any of us can or will understand. We talked once or twice about forgiveness;
the church had asked her to contribute to a book on the subject. I remember she
was a little melancholic about a conclusion she'd reached. She said she had
come to realize that giving and receiving love wasn't the profoundest
experience in this life, it was giving and receiving
forgiveness.
To her, sadly,
it meant that our highest expression is always bound up with sin.'

'Thank you, Mr
Donaldson,' Jenny said, still struggling to make sense of his evidence. She
addressed the advocates' bench. 'Cross-examination?'

All three
lawyers shook their heads.