The Redeemed (42 page)

Christine
Turnbull made no comment
in her police interview
and (according to the word on Alison's grapevine) became increasingly confident
that the circumstantial case against her would be too weak to support a
conviction. Apart from the eyewitness who had placed her at Eva's house, only
the Turnbulls' nanny had implicated her, and it was rumoured that the young
woman had already retracted large portions of her statement. Against all the
odds, it seemed that Decency was witnessing a miracle.

But late on
Thursday afternoon, former Assistant Commissioner Geoffrey Solomon, a member
of the Mission Church of God's council, emailed an unsworn statement to the
police from a rented villa in Morocco, a country with which the UK had no
formal extradition treaty. His price for converting his statement into sworn testimony
was a guarantee of immunity from prosecution. DI Coughlin forwarded a copy to
Jenny in confidence, saying in the attached note that he was happy for God to
be Solomon's judge, as was the Attorney General: Solomon would be the principal
witness for the prosecution.

As Jenny read
through Solomon's damning testimonial she finally heard the prison gates
closing on Christine Turnbull:
...
I received a telephone call from Michael Turnbull early on the afternoon of
Monday, 10 May. He said he needed to meet straight away on a matter he couldn't
discuss on the telephone. I caught a train to London and we met at his
Kensington flat. Michael was in a dreadful state, he looked ill and distracted.
After much prompting, he told me that his wife, Christine, had gone to confront
Eva Donaldson at her home the previous evening and had returned later saying
that she thought she had killed her. Michael called his lawyers, who
immediately sent a car for her. He hadn't seen her since late the previous
night.

I had been aware
of some tension between Eva and the Decency campaign over money, but I had no
idea what had transpired between her and Michael. He told me that in the
previous November they had argued over Decency's decision not to increase her
salary. Eva then confronted him with the allegation that six years previously
she had been one of a number of hostesses at a party Michael had held for
business associates. Eva claimed that she and the other girls had had sexual
contact with Michael and a number of his guests. I didn't ask him whether or
not this was true, but I gained the distinct impression that it was.

By this time Eva
had become critical to the Decency campaign. Michael had no choice but to seek
an injunction preventing her from repeating her allegation elsewhere. He
deeply regretted having kept all this from his wife, but he feared that she was
under such pressure of work it would have been an unnecessary burden to place
on her.

Once Eva had
been served with the injunction she abided by its terms, but in recent weeks
she had started to complain about methods of prayer counselling at the Mission
Church of God. Michael was aware of at least two occasions on which Eva
confronted Christine Turn- bull at the church offices over the issue, leading
to heated exchanges.

On the evening
of Saturday 8 May, matters came to a head. Eva telephoned Christine from a
hotel in Manchester and told her that unless the prayer counselling was
stopped, she was going to resign from the Decency campaign and go public with a
number of allegations, including the details of the sex party. She also claimed
to have been threatened by Ed Prince, the Turnbulls' personal lawyer and a
trustee of the church, that if she broke the terms of her injunction her life
'wouldn't be worth living'.

Christine
Turnbull reacted exactly as Michael had feared. They spent the whole of
Saturday night and Sunday arguing bitterly. Personal issues aside, Christine
believed Eva was intent on destroying the Decency campaign just as it was
nearing a successful conclusion, and the Mission Church of God too. Michael
spent many hours pleading with her to stay away from Eva, and eventually she
promised she would. He had no idea that she had driven straight from the church
on the Sunday night to Eva's home. According to Michael, Christine claimed to
have acted in self-defence, saying she took a knife with her only for
protection in case Eva became violent, but it was clear to me he wasn't
convinced, and in the light of the evidence that has since come to light, nor
am I.

My experience of
Christine Turnbull was that she was a woman of extremes. Nearly all of the time
she was remarkably calm and relaxed, but on several occasions I witnessed her
erupting into violent rage, even lashing out at her husband. To say that her personality
altered beyond all recognition during these episodes is an understatement. I
believe Michael Turnbull tolerated these outbursts because they were rare. On
this occasion I have no doubt that, faced with the prospect of Eva Donaldson
derailing the Decency campaign and disgracing the church, Christine Turnbull
lost all self-control and set out deliberately with the intention of killing
her. I would describe her as a woman possessed.

The following
two days were spent in crisis mode. I held numerous meetings with Ed Prince in
which we monitored the progress of the police investigation and made
contingency plans. It was decided that if evidence emerged which placed
Christine at Eva's home, she would say that she had gone there out of friendly
concern but that Eva hadn't answered the door. She would explain the delay in
telling her story on advice given to her by her overly cautious lawyers.

When Craven came
forward and confessed, it seemed our prayers had been answered. The officer in
charge of the investigation, DI Vernon Goodison, had been a longstanding
junior colleague of mine and had kept me fully informed of all major
developments. He was convinced of Craven's guilt, but was very concerned that
his confession could be undermined by psychiatric evidence; he desperately
needed evidence that placed him at the scene. It was Prince who came up with
the idea of Craven's urine being found on Eva's doormat, and he urged me to
plant the idea in Goodison's mind. I resisted at first, but Ed Prince is a very
persuasive man; after two hours of talking it over with him, he convinced me I
would be doing God's work.

I met Goodison
for a drink and suggested that he plant Craven's DNA at the scene. I pretended
that all senior officers knew such things had to be done from time to time, and
that it would almost be expected of him.

Goodison thanked
me for the advice. In so far as it's possible, I believe he was acting out of
the best of motives.

As far as I was
concerned, the only fly in the ointment was a series of complaints from one of
our congregants, Alan Jacobs. In the days following Eva's death, he sent the
church trustees a number of emails claiming that he and several others,
including a young man called Frederick Reardon, had been psychologically
damaged by prayer counselling they had received at the church. I spoke to our
administrator, Joel Nelson, about these complaints and he assured me they were
groundless. He told me that Jacobs was a confused and unhappy individual who
had been close to Eva and was very upset by her death. As I was especially
determined to protect the reputation of the church at a difficult time, I
sought Ed Prince's advice on how to deal with Jacobs. Prince then interrogated
Nelson at length about prayer sessions he had conducted with Jacobs. I know he
also spoke to Jacobs in person. I wasn't privy to exactly what was said, but
afterwards Prince told me he had 'explained the facts of life' and that Jacobs
wouldn't be making any more complaints.

A few weeks
later Joel Nelson called me late on a Saturday night to say that our night
security officer had found Jacobs's body outside the main entrance to the
church. I telephoned DI Tony Wallace, who is a loyal and longstanding member
of our congregation and a man I have known both professionally and personally
for over twenty years. We met at the church and both agreed that it was
obviously a case of suicide. Initially, we resolved to report the death in the
normal way. In fact, Wallace had already contacted the coroner's office when Ed
Prince became aware of the situation and demanded that the body be moved
elsewhere, to protect the reputation of the church.

On this occasion
I objected strongly on the grounds that the risk to the church was far greater
if we were discovered, but I was overridden by Prince, who persuaded Wallace
to organize the body's transfer to another location.

Again, I
convinced myself that we had done nothing substantially wrong and had saved the
church from potential scandal.

About this time
I became aware that Ed Prince was concerned about the possibility of a coroner
inquiring into Eva's death. In particular he was worried that the local
coroner, Mrs Jenny Cooper, had a reputation for asking uncomfortable questions.
Together with several of his colleagues he held a number of meetings with
potential witnesses to an inquest, including Michael and Christine Turnbull,
Joel Nelson and Pastor Lennox Strong. On one occasion he telephoned me to ask
about one of the church's young congregants, Frederick Reardon. Prince's team
had discovered that Reardon had a criminal record and wanted to know if there
was any way of finding out if he had been arrested for or was suspected of
having committed other offences. I told him that it might take some time to
persuade former colleagues to access police files. Prince said that was no good
- he demanded the information immediately. If it wasn't forthcoming, he
threatened to 'scare Reardon into doing what he was told'.

I have no idea
what contact Prince had with Reardon, but I am in no doubt he would have spoken
to him. Whether there was any direct connection between this and the young
man's suicide, I am unable to say, but from what I have since learned, Reardon
was an extremely fragile personality who relied on the church, quite literally,
for his sanity. I sincerely regret that I didn't intervene to protect him.
This, more than anything, weighs most heavily on my conscience.