The Coroner (36 page)

    Alison
didn't reply. Jenny heard her grab her things and stomp out into the hall.
Moments later there were angry footsteps outside her window, heading off down
the street.

    So
what? She could do without her. She was sick of people telling her what she
couldn't do.

    It
was nearly midnight and her blood was still up. She had spent the evening in
her study at Melin Bach, trawling through the Danny Wills file, planning her cross-examinations
and finding the holes Elaine Lewis wouldn't be able to plug. There was no doubt
in her mind that her inquest would result in a verdict of death caused by gross
negligence and want of care. It would see Elaine Lewis and her staff exposed to
the full gale of media and public opprobrium. Questions would be asked in
Parliament, criminal charges would follow. Her name would be synonymous with
the fearless struggle for truth and justice. It didn't matter that her son had
rejected her, or that Steve hadn't so much as left her a message. Nothing could
shake her. She was a force of nature.

    She
poured half a tumbler of vodka over ice and drank it at her desk while she
logged into the office email account. There was a reply from a low-cost airline
saying a Mr J. Smirski had bought a one-way ticket to Poznan on 30 May but they
had no Polish address for him; a Mr Mason from Sectec Ltd wrote to say he'd be
at court on Monday and Ruth Turner confirmed that she would be attending.
Annoyed about Smirski, Jenny looked up her powers to summon witnesses from
abroad. The process was convoluted and required her to make an application
through a civil court, whose jurisdiction, unlike hers, extended throughout the
European Union. It could take weeks to get him to testify. She decided to
chance going ahead without him; if the evidence wasn't firm enough she could
always adjourn and track him down.

    She
continued to work furiously, pausing only to refill her glass. It was past two
when, her mind still full of fighting talk, the alcohol won and she dragged
herself upstairs to bed.

    She
had the dream about the crack in the wall of her childhood bedroom again. Only
this time it was more detailed: there was a human creature in there, around the
corner, out of sight. She imagined it as a man with a twisted face and musty
clothes who at any moment would beckon her into the darkness and seal up the
wall behind her so no one would ever know where he went. She turned her head
towards the door and the safety of her parents on the other side, but her body
refused to follow, her legs as heavy as granite. She felt the presence coming
closer to the crack, heard it shuffling in the dust between the rafters. She
wrenched at her legs with her hands but they stayed rooted to the boards.

    On
Saturday morning Jenny woke, feeling heavy and haunted, carrying a load that
refused to lift as she washed, dressed and tried to make breakfast without any
sudden movements. The day was dull and her mind was sluggish.

    Several
cups of coffee wouldn't shift the inertia. She tried sitting in the garden, but
the shadows hung persistently around her.

    The
vividness of her dream sensations began to scare her. She remembered Dr Travis
once telling her that the mind threw up disturbing images only when it was
disturbed, that in themselves they meant little but were a warning sign that
the brain was overloaded. She knew she was stressed, but tried to reassure
herself with the thought that the last time this had happened she hadn't been
as strong: she was still lying to herself that she could save her marriage.
Things were fundamentally better now, she had reorganized, she knew where she
was heading. What she was feeling was an aftershock, the unruly part of her
mind testing her resolve. The answer was to lose herself, to throw everything
into the inquest and emerge triumphant at the other end.

    She
went back into the kitchen, swallowed a temazepam and took a cup of herb tea to
her desk. She didn't look up until nearly three, by which time the ghosts had
finally crept away.

    Alison
was waiting in the lobby of Bristol Law Courts when Jenny arrived at
eight-thirty on Monday morning. Dressed in a dark suit, she exuded an
atmosphere of injured dignity.

    'As I
hadn't heard from you, Mrs Cooper, I thought it only proper that I should
attend at least for today - that is, if my presence is required.'

    'I
think there are a number of things we need to discuss, don't you?'

    'Now,
Mrs Cooper?'

    'I
don't think that would be appropriate. We'll meet at the office after today's
proceedings.'

    'Very
well. Will you be needing me in court?'

    Jenny
studied her face, her expression wounded and defiant, emotion behind her eyes
that she was struggling to hold in. 'Where did you hear those rumours about
me?'

    'The
Bristol Central coroner's office knew all about you even before you arrived. Mr
Hamer, the deputy there, told me you'd taken sick leave for stress after your
divorce.'

    'Grantham?'

    'From
what I hear he came under some pressure to allow your appointment.'

    'From
whom?'

    'The
word was you were a good lawyer. You'd done fifteen years' public service and
the Ministry wanted more women coroners.'

    'I see.'

    The
ease with which she was appointed was explained: her bosses in North Somerset
had had a word with the powers that be and had helped ease her into a secure
post. They'd got the Ministry on their side, played the female ticket and
strong- armed a reluctant Grantham and his colleagues at the local authority to
give her the job. It was nothing to do with her merits, it was a reward for
long, badly paid years as a state- employed lawyer. And even though not a word
had been said to her, somehow she was meant to understand this and toe the line
in gratitude. The local authority and the Ministry were expecting a grateful,
compliant coroner, and if she didn't play the game they could always explode
the bomb of her psychiatric history and have her removed. They thought they had
her on a leash.

    Alison
said, 'Shall I get the courtroom ready, Mrs Cooper?'

    Mildly
dazed, Jenny nodded.

    Alison
stepped towards the door, then paused and said, 'Still nothing to report on the
Katy Taylor inquiry, I'm afraid. There was a murder and several rapes at the
weekend — CID are pretty stretched at the moment.'

    The
courtroom, which normally hosted criminal trials, was small, modern yet formal.
Jenny sat in a large, high-backed swivel chair several feet above floor level.
Far from making her feel important, it made her feel responsible, part of the
Establishment. There had been something vaguely subversive about the village
hall; here she sat beneath the royal crest, surrounded by the trappings of
office.

    She
looked out at benches packed with people. Simone Wills and several of her
friends - women showing lots of tattooed flesh - sat at the front of the public
gallery. Alongside them was Tara Collins, her bruised face now several shades
of purple. Most of the other seats were occupied by journalists who had
overflowed from the single press bench. Jenny estimated there were nearly
twenty of them. Also in the public gallery were two suited figures: a
middle-aged woman and a slightly younger, not unattractive man. She assumed
they were civil servants of some sort, officials from the Ministry who had been
assigned to assess her probity and impartiality. On the advocates' benches,
representing UKAM Secure Solutions Ltd, sat her old friend Mr Hartley,
obviously something of a regular at Bristol inquests. This time he was briefed
by a glamorous young red-headed solicitor whose expensively bound lever arch
files bore the name of a prestigious London law firm. Behind them sat several
suits from UKAM, corporate men in striped shirts with suntans gained on the
golf course. The Wills family was represented by a nervous trainee solicitor,
scarcely more than a student, who was appearing pro bono in his capacity as a
volunteer at North Bristol Law Centre. A jury of eight men and women, several
obvious misfits among them, sat in the jury box. She suspected they were the
dregs of the pool, shunted in her direction by canny jury bailiffs elsewhere in
the building.

    Her
nerves steadied by 3omg of temazepam, she opened the inquest by outlining the
bare facts of Danny Wills's death. She explained to the jury that, as he had
been cremated, further examination by a pathologist had not been possible. They
would have to rely on the report of Dr Peterson, which stated that Danny had
died from asphyxiation due to strangulation, having been found hanging by a
strip of bed sheet from the bars of his cell window. Their job was now to
listen to the evidence and to decide when, where and how Danny met his death.
Possible verdicts might include accident - a completely unintended occurrence
with a fatal effect; misadventure - a risk deliberately undertaken which led
unintentionally to death; suicide; unlawful killing; an open verdict (where the
evidence doesn't lead to a definite conclusion); and neglect - a gross failure
to provide the basic necessities of life, including medical attention, to a
person in a dependent position.

    The
first witness she called to give evidence was Simone Wills. Standing in front
of so many people, Simone spoke in barely more than a whisper and was never far
from tears, frequently having to stop to collect herself. Jenny nursed her
through, encouraging her to talk directly to the jury. She told them all about
Danny's time growing up, his troubled relations with the various men in her
life, and how, despite her best efforts, he got drawn into petty crime until he
finally received the inevitable custodial sentence. By the time she started
describing her desperate phone calls to the director's office at Portshead
Farm, she had the jury on her side. A woman in the back row dabbed her eyes as
Simone said she knew, she
just knew
, that there was something badly
wrong with her son. And when she recounted seeing the two policemen on her
doorstep who had come with the terrible news, two more of the female jurors
wiped away tears. This seemed to give her strength: at last she had moved
people who mattered and they were feeling her pain.

    Hartley
said he had no questions for Simone, but skilfully proffered his condolences
with such sincerity that an audible sob issued from the most tearful woman in
the back row.

    Ruth
Turner arrived, flustered after dashing across the city from early meetings,
just in time to be second in the box. A confident witness with many years of
experience, she gave an unvarnished but compassionate account of the
dysfunctional Wills family, painting Simone as a victim too: a young woman
who'd struggled to build a secure home for her children but who had been let
down time and again by feckless men. She described the young mother's anguish
when during his first appearance before the Youth Court Danny was told to
expect a custodial sentence, and how she had tried without success to get the Youth
Offending Team to have him referred to a psychiatrist as part of his
pre-sentence assessment. When she repeated the details of her phone call to
Nurse Linda Raven - the one in which she was told there was no psychiatrist
available, even to see a child who was suspected of harbouring suicidal
tendencies - there were looks of outrage on even the most unpromising of the
jurors' faces.

    Jenny
drove the point home. 'You're sure Nurse Raven told you there was no
possibility of Danny being seen by a psychiatrist?'

    'She
said the local primary care trust had refused to provide one.'

    'But
there was nothing stopping the owners of Portshead Farm from paying for one
privately?'

    'Of
course not.'

    'As
far as you know, even though Danny was placed in an observation cell for three
days, he was never psychiatrically assessed?'

    'That's
correct.'

    'What
would happen in, say, a council-run children's home if a child in care was
suspected of being suicidal?'

    'We'd
get them seen by a psychiatrist as soon as possible.'

    'And
if you failed to do so?'

    'Obviously
it would amount to serious neglect.'

    'Is
Portshead Farm obliged to provide psychiatric care?'

    'It's
a condition of its contract with the Youth Justice Board. There's no requirement
to have every trainee assessed, but where there's a problem they're under a
duty to have a psychiatrist come in.'

    Hartley
rose with the now familiar gold-toothed smile and asked Ruth Turner if Danny,
as far as she knew, had a previous history of mental illness or disturbance?
Ruth said no, he didn't.