The Redeemed (30 page)

Jenny retraced her steps across the city oblivious to the
passing showers. Simon hadn't spelled it out in terms, but he had told her that
despite all the high-blown academic theory there were situations in which the
law came a distant second to politics, and this was one of them. The government
had read the public mood and quietly agreed to smooth the way for the Decency
Bill. It was a near-perfect manoeuvre: a private bill claiming massive support,
striking a death blow to permissiveness that previous administrations could
only have dreamed of. And Eva's short and tragic life neatly told the story:
slain by a monster she helped to create, saved by a faith that redeemed her.
Nothing must be allowed to sully her memory.

Jenny
found herself asking what Alec McAvoy would have said. From wherever he was, he
answered her loud and clear:
Would that oily
wee bastard from the Ministry have come all the way from London if he'd nothing
to hide? Who're you kidding, woman
?

A news bulletin blaring out of the open door of a builder's
van told her it was three o'clock, a thought which brought her back to her
appointment later that afternoon at Weston police station. Turning the corner
from Whiteladies Road, she pulled out her phone and tried to reach Steve.

He answered with the impatient tone of a man who didn't
appreciate a personal call intruding at the office. 'Hi, Jenny. Look, I'm just
going in to meet clients.'

'When can I talk to you?'

'I can't say - it could be a few hours.'

'Your detective came to see me. He wants me to go to Weston
police station this evening to give a statement.'

'My
detective?'

'Sorry. It's not what I meant—'

'I really can't talk now. I'll call you when I'm done.'

He rang off.

'Screw you, too,' Jenny said out loud to herself.

Alison emerged from the kitchenette in a pair of spiky heels
that Jenny didn't recall her wearing earlier in the day.

'There you are, Mrs Cooper,' she said, sounding a little
flustered. 'I've had a consultant surgeon from the Vale on the line who's just
lost a twelve-year-old girl to peritonitis. He sounded in a dreadful state.'
She handed Jenny a note bearing his name and direct line. 'And you had another
call from Father Starr. He doesn't give up, does he? He's like some sort of
incubus.'

'What did he say?'

'Do you think he'd tell me?' She sat in her swivel chair and
turned to her computer with exaggerated primness.

The consultant's voice was weak with exhaustion. The fight to
save the dead girl had lasted nearly two hours. She was from a strict Muslim
family who had left it far too late to bring her to A & E for fear of her
being examined by a male doctor. A ruptured appendix had caused septicaemia and
multiple organ failure. Jenny did her best to reassure him that her inquest was
likely to be a formality, but she could hear the fear in his voice. Successful
litigation would push his insurance premiums through the ceiling and kill his
private practice. No more house in the country, no more private school fees.
She feared he might break down and weep: there was no one quite as pathetic in
adversity as a professional man used to nothing but praise.

There was nothing brittle about Father Starr's voice as he
answered the communal telephone in the Jesuit house, nor any trace of surprise
that she had responded so obediently.

'It's absolutely essential that we talk, Mrs Cooper, as soon
as possible. Are you free now?'

'I could be. I don't have long.'

'I'll come straight to your office.'

'That wouldn't be appropriate.'

'Because—?'

Because I don't want anyone to know, she said to herself.
Because I'm confused. Because I don't know if you're mad, obsessed or the one
person I should be listening to.

'I have to drive out of town. I'll be passing through
Clifton.'

'No.' He lowered his voice. 'But I can be on the Downs side
of the suspension bridge in fifteen minutes.'

The heavy clouds had blown over and bursts of sunlight cast
the Downs in a luminous golf-course green. Jenny picked her way past lazing
groups of college students catching the precious rays as she made her way from
her car towards the toll house at the end of the bridge spanning the Avon
gorge. She had been waiting no more than two minutes when a figure she only
half recognized as Father Starr emerged from the pedestrian entrance to the
suspension bridge. He was wearing a navy polo shirt and sand- coloured chinos,
no dog collar. Without the authority of priestly clothes, his dark, intense
eyes seemed more unsure than threatening: a window to a complex soul.

He glanced over his shoulder as he approached, then seemed to
scan the expanse of grass behind her and the bushes beyond.

'I nearly didn't recognize you,' Jenny said.

'You mean I look human?'

'Almost.'

He smiled.

'Where do you want to go?' she asked.

'We'll just walk. It won't take long.'

He struck off across the grass, hands clasped behind his back
as if he were heading for somewhere. Jenny followed in his wake, resenting the
fact that he felt entitled to dictate events.

'What is it you want to discuss?' she asked, trying to regain
control.

His answer came after a short pause, as if a final mental
obstacle had first to be crossed. 'There are people who might help . . .'
Another hiatus. 'As it seems you have reached the limits of your resources, I
thought it appropriate that I should draw on theirs.'

'Who exactly are we talking about?'

'Friends. Sympathizers.'

'Would these be Roman Catholic friends?'

'Of course. What of it?'

'I'm a coroner in the middle of an inquest, Father. The only
things of any use to me are credible witnesses and verifiable facts.'

'I appreciate that, Mrs Cooper. I can't provide you with
witnesses at the present moment, but I can offer you information.
Verifiable
information.'

Jenny waited to hear it.

'As you probably know, the Decency campaign has a board of
eight members, mostly respectable business people as well as a retired
diplomat, I believe. For various legal and no doubt tax reasons, it has chosen
to organize itself as a limited company. The Mission Church of God, however, is
a registered charity, but with only three named trustees: Michael and Christine
Turnbull and the lawyer, Edward Prince. But the actual governance of the church
is conducted by a council of five. Michael Turnbull is one of them, Ed Prince
another, then there's a former Assistant Commissioner of police, Geoffrey
Solomon, a banker turned philanthropist named Douglas Reynolds and the
American pastor, Bobby DeMont.'

'No women?' Jenny said.

'I get the impression they're rather conservative.'

'That's something, coming from a Jesuit.'

'Not a Jesuit quite yet,' Starr reminded her.

They had rounded a thicket of tall shrubs that shielded them
from the road and the eyes of passers-by; he slowed his pace to a stroll as he
glanced left and right.

Jenny wondered who it was he was frightened of; were his
Jesuit brothers watching his every move?

'And why do you think the identities of these men are so
important?' Jenny enquired.

'It's not so much who they are, as their
agenda,
Mrs Cooper. You won't find it written down in black and
white because they prefer to pursue it from the shadows. But these men are
puritans, in the truest sense of the word. They have an unswerving, absolutist
commitment to their doctrine. Nothing is more important to them than realizing
their vision of God's kingdom on earth.'

'Is that so different from yours?' Jenny asked.

Starr came to a halt and turned to her, his face filled with
conviction. 'You have to understand what is most significant to these people.
In my church we strive for purity, but we know it will only arrive through
grace; we seek to allow God his room to move, to touch lives and to change them
from within. The puritan mind insists on purity, demands it, imposes it. It
believes a simple declaration can effect a personal and immediate relationship
between man and God no matter how ignorant and sinful the man.' His eyes danced
as he gesticulated with his hands. 'That is why it strives for phenomena, for
evidence of the Holy Spirit entering the physical body. You must have heard
them pray? They lecture and barrack and demand their immediate reward. They
are impatient with this world, Mrs Cooper, and also with its creator. They have
no
humility.'

'You may be right,' Jenny said calmly, 'but how does this
affect Mr Craven?'

Starr clasped his hands tightly in front of his chest. 'Mrs
Cooper, you would listen to a doctor of seventeen years' standing and give
weight to his opinion?'

'Of course—'

'And equally to a lawyer, or an engineer?'

She nodded, her heart growing heavier as she anticipated his
point.

'My expertise is in the condition of the human soul. God called
me to live amongst criminals and minister to them. I have accompanied Paul
Craven on a journey lasting many years; I have witnessed his redemption as
proof of God's grace. If it is false, then so am I, so is my faith and so is my
church.'

'Father, your faith isn't evidence.'

'Perhaps not in the legal sense, but as God is my witness
that will come. I have someone working on it as we speak, all I ask is for
you
to maintain a little faith.' Softening visibly, he said,
'If I could give you some of mine, I would.'

Jenny said, 'The inquest finishes tomorrow. If you wish to
bring any further evidence to my attention you haven't much time.'

'I understand, Mrs Cooper.'

She felt a sudden and powerful urge to unburden herself, to
tell him he was insane to stake his vocation on a woman in her predicament, but
he was immovable, she realized, clinging to his belief like the last piece of
wreckage in a storm-tossed sea.