The Coroner (46 page)

    'Who
do you think he is?'

    She
looked at him as she took a sip of her coffee. 'I can trust you, can't I?'

    'I guess
I've only got you arrested once.'

    She
put down the cup, feeling annoyed at herself for doubting him, aware of the
dark unwanted thoughts creeping in at the edges, getting around the chemical cocktail
in her brain. 'No one's asked you anything about me?'

    'No.
What's this to do with - your work?'

    'Why
did you come here that first day?'

    He
stopped eating, a surprised look on his face.

    She
said, 'The truth.'

    It
took a moment for him to find the words. 'OK . . . The day you moved in there
was a rental van outside. I drove past and saw you lugging this big plastic
laundry basket filled with stuff up the front path ... I thought you looked
pretty. It was one of those moments—'

    'What
moments?'

    'When
you know something's going to change.'

    'You
fancied me hauling a laundry basket?'

    'If
we're being really truthful, it was more than that ... I knew I had to have
you.'

    'That
would be in the sexual sense?'

    'In
every sense.'

    'And
look at us now, we're going to court together.'

    Steve
looked down at the table. 'I don't know what to say . . . I'll take the blame,
it wasn't your fault. . . Maybe I should go now.'

    'Swear
to me you didn't set me up.'

    'I
can guess how it happened . . . Annie knows I had grass, I gave her some. And
she could have known I was coming here. I passed a couple of guys I know in the
lane on my way up. They'd have told her where I was.'

    'Are
you sleeping with her, too?'

    'Not
recently.'

    'She
hates you enough to call the police?'

    'It
was her who told me about the guy ... He gave her some money.'

    'And
you didn't say anything to me?'

    'I
was going to ... I got distracted.'

    Jenny
let out a short laugh, then laughed again, louder, but with tears behind her
eyes. She tried to stop them but they caught her by surprise and rinsed her
cheeks. Steve got out of his chair and came round the table and hugged her.

    Later,
when she had control of herself, she told him about Danny Wills and Katy Taylor
and what had happened to Harry Marshall and Tara Collins. She told him how she
had started out with good intentions, but now she was scared.

    Steve
asked what he could do to help. Jenny said not to blame himself for what had
happened. UKAM would have found a way to get to her one way or another.

    From
the look on Alison's face Jenny could tell that she knew. She said there had
been phone calls from journalists and the story was already up on the
Post's
website:
Severn Vale Coroner in Dope Bust.
Simon Moreton from the
Ministry of Justice had emailed asking Jenny to call him. The list officer at
the Law Courts had telephoned to say they'd had a message that the courtroom
wouldn't be required on Monday - was that correct? Things were moving fast.
She'd also heard that the police inquiry into Katy Taylor's disappearance had
been put on hold for a week because officers had been diverted to an
investigation into the petrol-bombing of a mosque.

    Jenny
said, 'If someone came and offered me a bribe now to get clear of this, I don't
think it would take much.'

    Alison
pushed a pile of overnight reports across the desk. 'Do you want to look at
these?'

    'Might
as well.' She picked them up and turned to her office.

    'Do
you want to tell me what happened?' Alison asked gently.

    Beyond
caring, Jenny said, 'My new boyfriend was smoking grass. One thing led to
another . . . His ex called the police but I think someone from UKAM had got to
her first. She's a single mum who works behind a bar.'

    'You
lead an exciting life.'

    'Want
to swap?'

    Alison
gave her a motherly look. 'What shall I tell anyone who asks?'

    'You
used to be a copper, think of a story.'

    She
sat at her desk knowing there were people she should contact, Simone Wills,
Andy and Claire Taylor, but what would she tell them - sorry, but my
dope-smoking boyfriend and I were only having some harmless fun? She felt like
a fool, humiliated. You couldn't come up with a better set-up - make the victim
feel like she's brought it on herself.

    The
first call was from Moreton. He sounded embarrassed. 'I hear you've got
yourself into a drop of hot water, Jenny.'

    She
said, 'I would explain to you how a wealthy private corrections company
skilfully disposed of my predecessor and is now doing the same to me, but I
don't think you'd believe me.'

    'I'm
afraid I have to concern myself with rather more mundane matters, such as what
to do with you while these charges are still pending.'

    'Am I
not innocent until proven guilty?'

    'Of
course, but we both know that judicial officers can't continue to function
while they're the subject of criminal charges.'

    'If
you spoke to the families of Danny Wills and Katy Taylor I don't think either
of them would have a problem with me continuing.'

    'The
Ministry would have a problem, Jenny, even in these enlightened times. I'm
calling to tell you that the decision has been taken to suspend you on full pay
pending the resolution of your case.'

    The
words floated through her.

    'What
happens to the inquests?'

    'They'll
be adjourned. Obviously if you're found guilty of an offence another coroner
will deal with them in due course.'

    'If
I'm acquitted?'

    'We're
rather hoping you might take some time to consider your options while you're
away from the office. Should you decide that perhaps the Coroner Service isn't
for you, I'm sure we'd assist with the appropriate references.'

    'You
make sacking me sound like an act of kindness.'

    'I
appreciate it must be a very difficult time for you.'

    'Actually
I feel quite calm, now I know who the bad guys are.'

    There
was a pause before Moreton responded. 'I'm sending you a confirmatory email
with a hard copy in the post. We'd like you to leave the office by six p.m.'

    She
tried to make progress with the paperwork, her pride telling her to leave a tidy
desk behind her, not to give whoever sat here next the pleasure of saying she
ran a sloppy office. On the other side of the door she could hear Alison on the
phone, speaking in hushed tones to scandalized colleagues in other coroner's
offices wanting to know the lurid details. To her credit, she was loyal, saying
it was all a fabrication, that a friend of hers might have smoked something but
she wouldn't have known. After hearing it a few times, Jenny almost believed it
herself.

    She
worked through the day's reports in a semi-trance, writing out nine death
certificates, which she handed to Alison. She made a neat pile of the five
current cases requiring inquest, but none of them a full jury hearing, and
tidied her files in the Danny Wills and Katy Taylor cases, leaving a brief
explanatory note with each. The only thing she hadn't dealt with was the
accounts. Alison said not to worry, she'd sort them out somehow.

    At
six o'clock Jenny packed her briefcase and stepped out of her office to say
goodbye, but Alison had already gone, her chair tucked under the desk. She went
out of the main door and closed it shut behind her. She turned the key in the
lock and posted it back through the letter box. No word of farewell, no note,
just a heavy silence and a sense of unresolved sadness which hung in the air
like a fog.

    David's
call came as she was clearing the tolls on the approach to the Severn Bridge.
Her hands-free connected to the stereo and his voice barked at her through four
speakers. 'Deborah just showed me the paper. Well done. Ross isn't home yet,
but I expect he'll have heard the good news. You're not his pusher, are you'

    'Grow
up, David.'

    'I'm
serious. Nothing about you could surprise me.'

    'Well,
you can relax. I'm not your problem any more.'

    'You're
still my son's problem.'

    
'Your
son.'

    'I'm
clearly the only one of us capable of taking responsibility.'

    'The
dope was nothing to do with me.'

    'That's
fine, then, it's just your hippie boyfriend I've got to worry about.'

    'He's
a damn sight more intelligent than that pea-brained piece of arse you've got
running round your kitchen.'

    'I
didn't call to trade insults with you, Jenny - there's nothing I could say that
would do your behaviour justice - but while he's in my care, I will not have
you around my son.'

    'Oh,
really? Well, in case you hadn't noticed, he's not a child any more. He's
nearly sixteen years old and can make his own decisions.'

    'He
did that some time ago, or are you still too stoned to remember?'

    Jenny
looked out over water, a pillar of light breaking through a gap in the clouds
to the west.

    David
shouted, 'What I'd really like from you, but I suppose it's too much to ask, is
the slightest hint of apology.'

    She pushed
the red button on the phone, cutting him off, and watched the shaft of sunlight
narrow to a sliver and then disappear.

    Ross
didn't answer his phone and she didn't blame him. It wasn't that she'd been a
bad mother; she had tried to be the very best she could. What she was was a
person who didn't have it in her to be as selfless as everyone wanted her to
be. To have got it right she would have had to sacrifice her career and stay at
home to keep David's house beautiful, cook him meals, have sex with him when he
wanted and find a sporty hobby he would have approved of, like tennis or
horseriding. Coming back in her jodhpurs, making love in the shower before
putting on a healthy dinner and helping Ross with all the homework from his
pushy private school. She tried to imagine it, how she would feel as queen of a
perfect home. Suffocated. Desperate. Murderous. The words that came weren't
good ones. They proved her point: she had too many emotions of her own to be
able to put other people first. The unforgivable thing was that she had known
it all along, since before she married. She should have stopped the train then
and jumped off, but she had been eager to get romance, marriage and all the
rest out of the way so she could proceed with her life. Even on her wedding day
she wasn't in the moment, it was always
what next
? How long till I get
pregnant? How soon can I get back to work?

    Sixteen
years on and she was a broken down, pill-dependent failure of a mother who was
about to lose the one thing she hadn't been prepared to sacrifice. It wasn't a
spectacular career, but being made a coroner at forty-two was something to be
proud of.

    She
had parked in a lay-by in the thick of the woods a mile or so before Tintern.
There was a track to the right which led down to the River Wye. You could
easily lose yourself on the way, wander off into the trees where no one could
see, crawl into a thicket of holly and briars. Or go down to the water and wait
for high tide, take the pills there and slide out to sea. With luck they'd
never find you. The last trace a footprint on a muddy bank washed away by the
rain.

    It
had taken three temazepam to achieve the muzzy feeling, not anger or panic,
more removed than that. The picture in her mind was of a kite tugging at its
string in a strong breeze. There was a strange and unexpected vitality to the
sensation, the act of release something to
do.
Her hand found its way
into her bag and her fingers closed around the beta blockers. A bottle of
those, her heart and lungs would gently relax and she could drift away.