The Coroner (42 page)

    Jenny
thought about it for a moment. 'That'll do.'

    She
swallowed the first dose in her car outside the late-night chemist in Chepstow
High Street. Not having eaten since breakfast, the drugs got into her system
fast. It was a sensation she'd almost forgotten. Things flattened out. The
anxiety melted away, her diaphragm loosed and she was no longer conscious of
her heart beating. It was different from alcohol, a subtler feeling without
elation; an absence more than a presence.

    Dr
Allen said he wasn't going to tell her not to drive, but to be careful. If she
even felt the beginnings of an attack she was to pull over. Technically he
could take her licence away but he was going to trust her. It was his way of
saying they had a deal. He'd cut her some slack if she committed to digging out
the trauma.

    She
didn't want to think about her own past now. As she drove back up the hill
towards the edge of town she felt fine behind the wheel. She had three clear
working days and the weekend to turn up more evidence.

    There
were two messages on the machine in her study. The first was from Alison,
asking if Jenny would like her to deal with the run of the mill cases for the
next couple of days - she could always email her anything that looked out of
the ordinary. The court had been reserved for next Monday and everyone notified
of the adjournment. There was nothing for her to worry about except getting
well. Jenny smiled when she heard that - like all she had was a head cold.

    The
second was from Tara Collins, sounding concerned. She'd heard Jenny was ill and
hoped it wasn't anything sinister. Listening to her questions in court, she'd
picked up the connection Jenny was trying to make with Katy Taylor and had been
putting the word out that she wanted to speak to Hayley Johnson. A contact had
left a message that Hayley had been working the streets in Broadlands the last
few nights. Did she want to try and find her?

    Jenny
dialled Tara's number and got rerouted to her mobile. It sounded like she was
in a bar somewhere, a lot of voices and music in the background.

    'It's
Jenny Cooper. I just picked up your message.'

    'How
are you? Your officer said you were ill.'

    'I'm
fine. Nothing serious.'

    Tara
sounded relieved. 'Buying time, right?'

    'Kind
of.'

    'Thought
so. Those bastards thought they had it all sewn up, didn't they? I wouldn't be
surprised if they'd even got to Terry Ryan. There's not much a kid like that
wouldn't do for a few grams of ice.'

    'Ice?

    'Crystal
meth - the kind you smoke.'

    'I'm
behind the times.'

    'You
know what fashion's like now, your trainers are sad before you get 'em home.'
Tara was sounding chattier than she'd ever heard her, as if she'd had a few.

    'Look,
I'd like to talk to Hayley Johnson. Do you think I could find her tonight?'

    'It's
a bit early yet. She won't hit the street until at least eleven.'

    'Any idea
where I should start?'

    Tara
said, 'If you like, I can come with you. She should recognize me.'

    'OK.
Where do you want to meet?'

    'Pick
me up at my place. I'm 15B Alexander Road, Bradley Stoke.'

    'See
you at eleven.'

    'Bye,
Jenny. Byeee.' She'd definitely had several.

    Jenny
put the phone down and immediately felt restless. Nearly four hours to kill.
She grabbed a sandwich and a cup of herb tea, then tried to settle at her desk
and work on a chronology of events to help order her thoughts. She went over
all the major dates again but kept coming back to the same point: Marshall
began his inquest into Danny's death on Monday 30 April. It was on the previous
Thursday or Friday that Simone Wills said his mood had changed. Katy had gone
missing from home the Sunday before that and had died or been killed on the
Monday or Tuesday. If there was a link to be made, the answer lay in what
happened during the last week of April.

    She
called Alison at home and asked for Mrs Marshall's phone number. Alison was
hesitant and hedged around, asking how Jenny was, trying to tease out of her
the reason for wanting it. Jenny said she was fine and just wanted to ask Mrs
Marshall if she remembered Harry saying anything about either Danny's or Katy's
case.

    Alison
said, 'I told you, he never talked to her about his work. She thought it was
morbid.'

    'There
can't be any harm in asking.'

    'You
won't say anything to upset her, will you, Mrs Cooper? She and her daughters
are still very shocked.'

    'What
do you think I'm going to do, tell her you and Harry were having a non-affair?'

    
'Please
.'
She lowered her voice to a whisper. 'My husband's in the other room.'

    'If
you remember, Alison, we had a deal.'

    'I just
don't want anything to upset her memory of him. He was such a good man.'

    Mary
Marshall was a short, timid, grey-haired woman who looked older than Jenny had
expected. She could have been a primary school headmistress or a librarian;
vanity was certainly not among her sins. She answered the door of her
comfortable, detached home in leafy Stoke Bishop on the security chain, a
terrier yapping at her heels. Relieved that it wasn't a masked thug on the
doorstep, she shooed the dog into the kitchen before returning to let Jenny in.

    'Sorry
about Sandy. He's been on permanent guard duty since Harry went.'

    'He's
making a good job of it.'

    Mary
smiled and led Jenny down a carpeted hallway, passing the open door to a
sitting room, where two sensible- looking teenage girls were watching a
wildlife documentary.

    The
house was spotless but hadn't been redecorated since the 1980s.

    Jenny
declined the offer of a cup of tea or something stronger, so Mary led her
straight to the small study which she said had been Harry's, closing the door
behind her and turning the key in the lock. Whatever was to be discussed, she
didn't want the girls to hear. This was a house, Jenny sensed, where children
were to be kept children. She sat in one of two armchairs that looked as if
they had been upholstered at evening class. Mary sat in the other. Anxious, and
leaning forward with her hands on her knees, she asked how she could help.

    'You
might have read in the paper that I'm rehearing the last inquest your husband
conducted.'

    'Yes,
I did see that.' She sounded mildly reproachful, as if she took it as a
personal slight.

    'I
got the impression from the notes he left that he cared passionately about this
case, but when it came to the hearing he seemed to lose heart.'

    'I
know he was very unhappy about it. He hated dealing with deaths in custody. He
was a long-standing member of Amnesty before his appointment.'

    Jenny
nodded. 'Did he discuss the case with you at all?'

    'Only
in passing. He tried not to bring his work home. That's why he became a coroner
- so he could devote his evenings and weekends to his family.'

    Jenny
got the feeling the embargo on shop talk might not have been strictly
voluntary. Mary gave the impression she was not to be argued with.

    'In
the few days before he died he dealt with the case of a fifteen-year-old girl
called Katy Taylor - did he ever mention anything about that?'

    Mary
stiffened. She would have read about the case in the

    
Post
and known that Harry had been found wanting. 'No, he didn't. And I'm sure he
was only trying to spare the family. Sometimes going by the book isn't the most
compassionate thing. You'll find that out as you become more experienced, I'm
sure.'

    Jenny
gave a neutral smile. Having kept him on a tight leash for years, Mary was
giving Harry his posthumous reward: sainthood.

    'He
left a document in his desk drawer, something he must have been handed by a
third party, maybe a whistleblower. It was a tender that the company who ran
Portshead Farm had prepared for a major juvenile prison . ..' She paused to
consider her words carefully. 'The contract was worth tens of millions. Had
your husband's inquest found that the company was somehow to blame for Danny
Wills's death it could have put them out of the running ... I wonder, did he
mention any of this to you?'

    Defensive,
Mary sucked in her cheeks and shook her head. 'No, he didn't.'

    'Did
you get the impression that anything was weighing on his mind particularly?'

    'Nothing
more than usual ... He seemed a bit tired, that's all.'

    'I
don't really like to broach the subject, Mrs Marshall—'

    'I
made my views very clear to Alison. Harry would never have taken his own life.
Like me, he believed suicide was a sin, all suicide, even euthanasia for the
terminally ill.'

    'Actually,
I was going to ask whether he had ever encountered any sort of corporate
corruption before, and if he had, how he dealt with it.'

    Mary's
face relaxed a little. 'He hated it, of course he did. He was a man of
principle. He always had been.'

    'How
do you think he would have dealt with a sensitive document like this? The fact
is he
didn't
make it public . . . which leads me to think there must
have been a very good reason, or, should I say, a very powerful reason.'

    Mary
sat rigid. 'If you're suggesting he would in any way have allowed himself to be
compromised, I can tell you now, it's out of the question.'

    'Of
course.' Jenny was beginning to think she was wasting her time, but she
couldn't believe Marshall's widow was as clueless as she was pretending. In her
experience, those who sought refuge in religion were normally more acutely
aware of the inherent deviancy in human nature than most. She'd try a different
angle before she gave up. 'I understand your husband was a close friend of
Frank Grantham.'

    'No.'
She virtually spat out the denial.

    'Oh.
Alison said they had quite a lot to do with each other.'

    'That's
different. Harry had no time for him. He said he was an interfering little
fool.'

    'But
he took notice of him. Grantham certainly gave me the impression he was used to
getting his own way with the coroner's office.'

    'Harry
had a wife and four daughters, he couldn't afford to make enemies.'

    'Why
was he afraid of Grantham? He doesn't wield any legal power over the coroner.'

    'He
wasn't afraid of him.'

    'Then
why did your husband let Grantham push him around?'

    Mary
closed her eyes for a moment, as if enduring the grip of pain. 'I suppose
because Harry did a lot in the community. Frank has a finger in every pie and
he's not afraid to speak ill of people. If you want to know the truth, my
husband thought he was probably corrupt, but he was decent enough to keep his
suspicions to himself.'

    'Corrupt
in what way?'

    'I
can't see how any of this could be relevant ... I hate gossip.'

    'Please,
Mrs Marshall. It could be important.'

    Mary
turned her head away while she spoke, as if she were studying titles in the
bookcase. 'You only have to see where Frank lives to realize he didn't get it
all on his salary. He wouldn't make any more than Harry did.'

    'Harry
thought he was on the take? What from, property deals?'

    'It
was just speculation.'

    'He didn't
mention anything specific?'

    'No.
He didn't like idle talk either.'

    Jenny
steeled herself. 'Forgive me for asking, Mrs Marshall, but you understand I
have to cover everything . . . Have you noticed any irregularities in your
husband's finances since he died, any unusual payments, for example?'