The Redeemed (36 page)

The firm of
Kennedy and Parr occupied a smart Victorian building in Lincoln's Inn Fields, a
quiet, green oasis set behind the roaring thoroughfare of High Holborn. Like
all the pleasant central London squares, it had been built to keep the rich
insulated from the poor and it had succeeded. It was now home to expensive law
firms and upmarket finance houses. Quiet, discreet and reassuringly solid, it
was a place in which time seemed to have stood still, and where the wealthy
came for succour and sanctuary.

Jenny stopped by
the railings of the next-door building and searched her handbag for the
Temazepam tablet she knew was in there somewhere. She found it wedged in the
folds of her wallet and swallowed it dry. It was a drug for serious insomniacs
which these days barely touched her. Another thing she'd have to deal with when
this was all over. They were stacking up.

She approached
the front door and was buzzed through without demur. She stepped over the
threshold into a reception that resembled the set of a fashion shoot.

The receptionist
had been chosen to complement her surroundings. Jenny approached her with a
disarming smile.

'Jenny Cooper.'
She handed a business card over the counter. 'I need to speak to either Ed Prince
or Annabelle Stern. I'm sure they're expecting me.'

'Take a seat.'
The girl motioned her to a sofa.

Jenny flicked
through a pristine copy of
Tatler
as the girl phoned around the building, evidently being passed from one PA to
another. It was a full five minutes before she had any joy. 'If you'd like to
pick up the phone, Mr Prince will speak to you.'

Jenny reached
for the sleek handset sitting in the middle of the table. It felt unnaturally
smooth to the touch, like alabaster.

'Mrs Cooper?'
Prince barked, making sure to have the first word.

'I've trust
you've seen the order made by Mr Justice Laithwaite,' Jenny said, dispensing
with the niceties. 'I'd be grateful if you would comply. I'd like to take copy
documents back to Bristol this afternoon.'

'There's nothing
to copy. They were all destroyed months ago.'

'If that's true,
I have to call you as a witness of fact, Mr Prince, and Ms Stern also. Are you
in the building? If so, you could at least have the decency to conduct this
discussion in person.'

'It doesn't
matter where I am, there's nothing to discuss. Number one, there is no evidence
for you to see; number two, the order doesn't say anything about lawyers giving
evidence; and number three, I'd go to jail before I broke a client's
confidence.'

'You may well
have the opportunity to put those principles to the test.'

'I doubt that,
Mrs Cooper. I doubt that very much.'

Prince hung up.

Jenny marched
over to the reception desk. 'Please get me Ms Stern.'

'She's not
available.'

Jenny said, 'I'm
here to enforce a High Court order. She has a choice: speak to me now or I'll
have her office door broken down by police officers.'

'Just a moment.'
The girl dialled a number while Jenny drummed her fingers impatiently on the
counter. 'Is she in the building?' Jenny asked.

'Excuse me,' the
girl said and stood up from her chair. She opened a door behind her desk and
went through.

'Hey-'

The girl shut
the door after her. At the same moment, a large man in a buttoned-up blazer
which barely met across his pumped-up chest stepped out of a doorway next to
the elevator. His plastic lapel badge read, 'Kennedy and Parr, Security'. He
walked towards her with no expression on his dull face.

'Could you
please leave the building, madam.'

'I beg your
pardon?'

'Now.' He
gestured towards the door.

'Sir, I'm a
coroner, and I'm here to enforce a court order.'

The man looked
at her with dead eyes. 'Please comply with my instruction or I will have to use
reasonable force to remove you.'

Jenny reached
for her phone. 'I'm calling the police. I'd advise you not to make things any
worse for yourself.'

He shot out a
hand and grabbed her arm above the elbow.

'What the hell
do you think you're doing?'

With his other
hand he snatched her briefcase.

Pushing her
towards the door, the security guard hissed, 'What are you, brain dead? Get
out.' He tossed her case down the steps and shoved her after it.

He slammed the
heavy door, leaving her standing outside nursing an arm that felt as if it had
been crushed between boulders. A woman passing on the pavement stopped to gawp,
then hurried on.

Still in pain,
Jenny picked up her case with her good hand and started to plan her
counter-attack. If the lawyers wanted to play rough, she would send in officers
from Bristol to batter their way in. Meanwhile, Alison could take another team
into Reed Falkirk. She pulled out her phone to start making arrangements. The
numbers swam in front of her eyes.

She needed
somewhere to sit and calm down. She remembered a cafe on a busy road nearby,
but couldn't remember from which direction she had entered the square. Disorientated,
she looked left and right, searching for a point of reference.

'Jenny.'

She turned at
the sound of a familiar voice and saw Simon Moreton climbing out of a cab on
the far side of the road. Holding the door open, he called out, 'Over here. For
God's sake, come on.'

The feeling of
unreality intensified as she dumbly did as she was told. Simon buckled into the
seat next to her and instructed the driver to take them to the Royal Lancaster
Hotel.

'Why are we
going to a hotel?' she asked.

'It has a good
bar. And it's near the station.'

'Soften me up
and send me home?'

'Believe it or
not I'm on your side, Jenny.'

'How did you
know I was here? Don't tell me Annabelle Stern's pulling your strings, too.'

'There was a
certain flurry of excitement when news of your coup with poor old Mr Justice
Laithwaite hit the wires. It didn't take a genius to work out what your next
move would be.'

'They threw me
out. Their security guard nearly broke my arm. Did you know that was going to
happen, too?'

'More or less.'

'What the hell
does that mean?'

His ambiguous
sideways glance said he couldn't decide whether to give her the full or the
sanitized version.

'Unless you tell
me, Simon, I'm going to have that place turned over, news cameras, the lot.'

'You could,
Jenny, of course, and on one level I wouldn't blame you, but the fact is . . .
the fact is you'll be out of a job before you embarrass Lord Turnbull in
public, at least until his bill has passed.' He turned his gaze out of the
window, as if trying to detach himself from his words. 'You have to learn to
accept the way things work. Things get sorted out
in the end.
What you
mustn't do is cause a cataclysm where it needn't happen. One thing at a time.'

'And if an
innocent man strings himself up in his prison cell while he's waiting?'

'You're proving
my point, Jenny. You've let yourself become partial. That's precisely what our
measured approach is designed to prevent.'

'I have an order
for disclosure of documents that Turnbull had suppressed. Laithwaite told me
the story: Eva was a hostess at one of Turnbull's pre-salvation parties,
screwing his high-rolling friends, probably him, too. She'd been asking him
for more money since last November. She was on the skids, Simon, falling apart.
Turnbull thought she was going to expose him.'

Moreton stared
out of the window, smiling vaguely as they passed Charing Cross station and
headed out into Trafalgar Square, a billowing curtain of pigeons rising into a
clear sky.

Jenny said, 'Are
you going to say something, or just sit there admiring the view?'

'I was wondering
how far I would be prepared to go for you,' Moreton said. 'And if it backfired,
how I'd explain it to my colleagues ... or my wife. They'd all assume I'd had
my head turned, lost my judgement.'

He shot her a
look she couldn't read, but she could feel his charge in the brush of his
shoulder against hers as the cab swung through Admiralty Arch into St James's
Park. It would be so easy to say yes, Jenny thought, and to use him as her
champion and protector. It could even prove to be his salvation from all the
years of dissembling and compromise. She thought he might want that more than
anything, even more than he wanted her.

Jenny said,
'Turnbull's lawyers haven't got enough to prove I'm unfit. It's my father the
police are interested in, not me.'

'Judges are very
sensitive creatures, these days, Jenny. You'd be removed for your own good, out
of compassion, or at least until the storm had passed. We can't have a coroner
working under such a burden of mental stress - it's not in anybody's
interests.'

'What would
happen if I didn't have any bodies buried in my garden?'

'One would be
found. No one has nothing to hide, least of all the most outwardly blameless.'

'I'm not going
to sleep with you, Simon, so you might as well tell me what you've got in mind
now.'

'Jenny-'

'I don't think
it would be in anybody's interests either, do you?'

He met her gaze,
his eyes sparking briefly with hope, then slowly fading into resignation. 'No,
I suppose not,' he said, as if it was his decision alone to make. 'Well?'

'You leave the
disclosure issue alone and I'll guarantee the police will take a thorough look
at all that evidence relating to Miss Donaldson and Turnbull later. In the meantime,
you can lodge a statement with them setting out what you already know. But like
I said - one thing at a time.'

'Do Turnbull or
his lawyers get put on notice of the police investigation?'

'Absolutely
not.'

'What
do
they hear?'

'That you've
been "spoken to".'

Jenny thought
about it. It wasn't attractive, but nor was the alternative. At least Moreton's
deal still held out the prospect of justice being arrived at in the end. 'I
still have three witnesses to hear from again. I can't be seen to have been
completely rolled over.'

'I've showed you
the line, Jenny. It's up to you how close you walk to it.' His face cracked
into a smile.

'What?' Jenny
said.

'You . . .' His
hand brushed against hers. 'You'll never give up, will you?'