The Redeemed (16 page)

She had still reached no clear conclusion by the time she
arrived at the Mission Church of God later that afternoon. School kids, some
still dressed in their uniforms, mingled in friendly groups. Boys and girls
were good-naturedly kicking a football together. There was an atmosphere of
reassuring innocence, a sense of sanctuary, like the embrace of a large and
loving family.

In the lobby more children were sitting at rows of trestle
tables stooped over schoolbooks. A familiar voice called out to her. The
red-haired boy jumped up from one of the far tables and bounded over. Along
with all the others he was wearing a name badge. His said: Freddy Reardon.

'Hi. How d'you get on with the book?' His fingertips
anxiously gripped the cuffs of his school shirt, his freckled face bright with
excitement.

Jenny couldn't bear to disappoint him. 'I'm going to start it
this evening.'

'You'll be blown away,' Freddy said. 'What happened to her,
it's unbelievable. And when you've finished that one, you've got to read
Forgiveness.
She wrote that one with Lennox. You should hear him talk
about it - they finished it in a week. That's not like humanly possible, so it
means those words can only have been coming from one place, you know what I'm
saying?'

'I'll make sure to give it a go.' Jenny smiled, his enthusiasm
was infectious. 'So tell me, what's going on here?'

'Evening service is at five-thirty. You don't get in unless
you've finished your homework.'

'Wow.' She looked at the children's faces, pictures of
concentration, and recalled her nightly battles with Ross, having to drag him
from the computer and stand over him like an ogre. 'Everyone's behaving
themselves.'

'It makes you feel good,' Freddy said earnestly. 'Everyone
here looks out for each other. No one's giving you any trouble.'

'Are you all like this at school?'

Freddy grinned. 'Not really, there's no Lennox Strong at
school. I keep telling him he should set one up here. I'd come. It'd be wicked,
man.'

Jenny said, 'He's got your respect, huh?'

Freddy said, 'They're gonna have to invent a new word for it.
See that kid over there, the one with the Afro? He's at my school. This time
last year he was smoking rocks and mugging, pulled a knife on me one time. Now
he's in my study group. You want proof, you're looking at it.'

'I'm impressed,' Jenny said. 'And I'll read the book, I
promise.'

Freddy beamed, confident he'd closed the deal. 'It'll change
your life. Guaranteed. See you around.'

Joel Nelson greeted Jenny with a warm smile and a soft
handshake and brought her tea while she waited for the board meeting to finish.
The ten or so staff in the slick church offices could have passed for employees
in an advertising agency. Young, stylish and quietly efficient, they radiated
confidence. Pretending to be absorbed in the latest edition of the church's
glossy magazine, Jenny strained to make out the odd muffled exchange that
escaped through the closed boardroom door. She gathered they were discussing
media relations in the run-up to the parliamentary debate, but the detail
eluded her. What she did hear were snatches of Michael Turnbull's rousing final
address to his colleagues: 'The public is with us, the newspapers are following
and the politicians are being sucked along in their wake. What we've got,
ladies and gentlemen, is momentum, and if it keeps building this fast, nothing
on God's earth is going to stand in our way.' He was greeted with a burst of
applause which prompted the office staff to look up from their desks and smile.

Jenny counted eight board members as they filtered out,
upbeat and cheerful. Middle-aged, white, suited, six of them men, they looked a
conservative bunch, but their excitement was palpable. Several of their faces
were vaguely familiar. They weren't smooth enough to be politicians; Jenny
guessed they were businessmen and other professional leaders.

Michael Turnbull came out to meet her, still bathing in the
afterglow of a successful meeting. 'Mrs Cooper. Come on in.'

Jenny followed him into the cool, spacious boardroom, where
two others were waiting.

'Let me introduce you,' Michael Turnbull said, closing the
door behind him. 'This is my wife, Christine, co-founder and treasurer of the
Decency campaign, and this is Ed Prince, our chief legal adviser.'

Jenny shook hands and exchanged polite greetings with Lady
Turnbull, an elegant, well-spoken woman who, she had gleaned from a profile in
the church magazine, was forty-two and the former director of a PR agency. Even
in artificial light she didn't look a day over thirty. Jenny's confidence evaporated
in the glow of her perfect smile.

'Mrs Cooper.' Ed Prince enclosed her hand in a powerful fist.
He was in his late fifties, powerfully built and with a battle-ready glint in
his eye. He reminded her of the lawyers she was dealing with in the crane
collapse: hardened litigators with a merciless instinct for an opponent's
weakness.

'It was Ed's idea that he and Christine sit in, if you don't
mind,' Michael said, almost by way of apology.

Prince said, 'Lady Turnbull probably knew Eva better than any
of us, and quite frankly I'm here to protect the interests of this campaign.'
Ignoring Michael's glance, he pressed on. 'You know, Mrs Cooper, it would be
greatly appreciated if you could delay whatever you have to do for a few weeks.
The man's pleaded guilty - there's surely nothing more to be said.'

At least she knew what she was dealing with: a bully, and one
who thought a provincial coroner would retreat in the face of a big hitter from
the City. She felt prickles of perspiration on her back, but her heart wasn't
threatening to explode as it often did in the face of unexpected aggression.

Helping herself to a seat, Jenny said, 'I'm sure I won't need
to explain coronial procedure to you, Mr Prince, but in case you're not
entirely familiar with it, I'll remind you that being an independent judicial
officer means what it says. I carry out my inquiries independent of all outside
interference or influence. And for the avoidance of doubt, I have had no
contact with the media over Miss Donaldson's death, and I intend to keep it
that way.'

'That's a little naive, isn't it?' Prince said.

Christine Turnbull interjected. 'Mrs Cooper, you'll understand
our anxiety, nearing as we are the end of a multi- million-pound campaign in
which Eva was so involved. I suppose what's making us anxious is the thought
that something unexpected could come up.' She paused to consider her words
carefully. 'I'm sure it won't have escaped your notice that we're threatening a
very powerful industry, and not one renowned for its probity.'

Jenny said, 'My concern is to get full information about the
circumstances of Miss Donaldson's death. I'd be grateful for your help with a
few points.'

Michael Turnbull held up his hand to restrain Prince before
he objected. 'Of course. We'll assist in whatever way we can, Mrs Cooper.'

The lawyer frowned, keeping his eyes trained on her as she
took a legal pad from her briefcase. She guessed it was he who would have been
part of the discussion with Eva's father; the complaint to the Ministry of
Justice had probably been his idea. No doubt he was furious that she hadn't
been warned off.

Jenny opened her notebook to a page in which she'd jotted
some questions. 'This isn't a formal evidence-gathering session,' she
emphasized, 'just a chance for me to find out what was going on in Eva's life.'

Prince couldn't help himself. 'Are you seriously entertaining
the possibility that it wasn't Craven who murdered her?'

Calmly Jenny said, 'A coroner must entertain whatever
possibility the evidence supports.'

Prince gave a dismissive grunt.

Ignoring him, Jenny continued, 'I understand Miss Donaldson
had been working for Decency for a little over a year.'

'That's right,' Michael Turnbull replied. 'Though it seemed
like a lot longer.'

His wife nodded in agreement.

'What would you say was her chief motivation?'

'She didn't want other women to suffer what she had,'
Christine Turnbull answered. 'She wrote at length about it in her two books.
There was the simple humanitarian side, the desire to prevent cruelty and
exploitation; and there was the spiritual side. She genuinely believed that
pornography is an addictive drug, something that destroys moral integrity.'

Jenny said, 'I've no doubt she was committed to the cause,
but she was in trouble financially. Were you aware of that?'

Michael Turnbull cut in ahead of his wife. 'I'll be straight
with you. This has only come to light since she died. Decency paid her a very
reasonable salary, but obviously, if she'd told us how bad things were, we
might have tried to offer more help.'

'She wrote to you last November asking for a rise.'

'That's right. Her request was put to the board and it was
felt that increasing salaries wasn't the best use of funds. I talked to her
about it afterwards: she perfectly understood.'

Michael and Christine Turnbull exchanged a glance, as if
there was something they weren't sure should be said.

'Yes - ?' Jenny prompted.

'Of course, we knew the campaign wouldn't go on for ever,'
Michael said. 'I'd talked with Eva about what she was planning to do
afterwards, and to be honest she was struggling to decide between some quite
profound alternatives.'

'Such as?'

'She had become a very committed Christian, but she was also a
natural performer,' he said with a fond smile. 'I know she and Lennox, our
chief pastor here, talked a lot about her maybe entering the ministry, but she
was also attracted to a career as a serious actress. I couldn't tell you if she
had made up her mind, but I know what I would have wanted for her.'

'She was a very powerful preacher,' Christine Turnbull added.
'Personally, I think she'd made a decision to minister.'

'And live on what?'

'A very modest wage,' Michael Turnbull said. 'Money can't buy
a vocation. Even a well-endowed church like this one has to live by the obvious
principles.'

Jenny made a note that Eva was on the horns of a dilemma.
Maybe it began to explain the bizarre tattoo? Perhaps 'Daddy's Girl' referred
to her relationship with God? It didn't seem the obvious way to express it, but
what could she know about the mind of an ex-porn actress?

'How would you describe her state of mind in the weeks before
her death?' Jenny asked.

Michael Turnbull gazed at the ceiling for a moment, a trace
of sadness, or was it regret, in his expression? 'Like the rest of us she was
apprehensive, anxious to succeed. But having become the face of the campaign
she probably felt personally responsible in a way the rest of us didn't quite
appreciate.'

'You mean she was showing signs of strain?'

'No more than any of us,' Christine Turnbull said. 'I suppose
it just bothers all of us that she was at home that Sunday evening, too tired
to be here as she usually was. She had been to Manchester and Birmingham and
made several radio appearances that weekend.'

Yes, it was regret. Jenny saw it Michael Turnbull's face.

'If there's one thing I should have insisted on,' he said,
'it was that she have full-time security. I offered on several occasions but
she always refused. I suppose we all had faith that we'd be looked after. But
sometimes one has to stop and remind oneself that we live in a fallen world.'

'Did she receive much negative attention?' Jenny asked.

'Quite the opposite,' Christine Turnbull said. 'We had piles
of letters and emails for her every day, from well- wishers all over the
world.'

'No threats? She can't have had many admirers in the
pornography business.'

'There were a few,' Michael Turnbull said, 'but nothing
particularly sinister as far as I'm aware.'

'What about close friends? Was she seeing anyone?'

Husband and wife exchanged a look.

Christine Turnbull shook her head. 'No boyfriend as far as I
know. I don't think she had much time for a social life beyond what she had
here. You'll have to ask Lennox, he was probably the closest to her of all of
us.'

Ed Prince glanced impatiently at his expensive wrist- watch,
no doubt anxious to get on the phone to the office and hear what they'd come up
with to torpedo her.

Jenny said, 'One final thing: her computer. She'd shut down
her email in February and there was no sign of her laptop at her house. Do you
know what happened to it?'

Ed Prince turned to her. 'All those connected with the
campaign were advised to take steps to secure their personal communications.
From what I saw of Eva, she was a sensible young woman who would have taken the
advice to heart.'

It was Christine Turnbull who showed Jenny to the door. Over
the course of their interview, Jenny had gradually warmed to her. She had
expected a beautiful woman in what she suspected was a Dior suit to be aloof
and judgemental. In fact, Christine gave every impression of being eager to
assist and appeared profoundly saddened by Eva's death.

As they parted at the door, Christine Turnbull spoke quietly,
'I'm sorry if we seem agitated, Mrs Cooper. We're nearing the end of a long
road, and what happened to Eva . . .' She shook her head, at a loss for words.
'When you see how much good has been achieved you know evil's never going to be
far away. Eva was like a light in the darkness, and even though she's not here
for us, she's still shining.'

'I can see that,' Jenny said, and bid Christine Turnbull a
warm goodbye.