The Redeemed (43 page)

Jenny spent the
afternoon tying up loose ends. She visited Ceri Jacobs with the news that she
would hold a fresh inquest into her husband's suicide after Wallace's case had
been dealt with by the criminal courts. She was hopeful of finding whoever he
had been with in the final hours before he took his life outside the Mission
Church. Neither Ceri Jacobs nor Father Dermody, who had sat with her during the
meeting, had looked pleased at the prospect, but Jenny had felt unmoved. For
the first time in her career as coroner she experienced a true state of professional
detachment. It felt good.

She delivered a
similar message to Eileen Reardon, promising that Joel Nelson and his
colleagues would be forced to confess every last detail of their encounters
with Freddy. She even heard herself say that if she could prevent anything
similar from happening in future, some good might yet come from his death.
Delivering her message of hope in Eileen's gloomy sitting room, she imagined
this being a turning point for the grieving mother, a last chance to make a
life beyond the permanently drawn curtains. She had seemed to rally a little.
When it was time for Jenny to leave she showed her to the door. Waiting for the
lift, Jenny glanced over her shoulder to see Eileen scooping the dead flowers
outside her flat into a rubbish sack.

Driving home,
she took a detour past the Mission Church. The barrier to the car park was
padlocked. Steel shutters scarred with fresh graffiti were drawn down over the
windows of the cafe. The huge white cross still stood outside the main
building, but the lights that had given it the holy aura had been switched off.
Now raucous seagulls perched on the cross-beam. It seemed to her like the mast
of a sinking ship.

Too restless to
spend the bright evening confined by the cottage's garden, Jenny had an urge
to strike out into the woods and purge the city from her soul. Full of
excitement she pulled on her old jeans and boots, like a child embarking on a
longed-for outing. She strode up the lane, running her fingers through the cow
parsley, and turned onto the forestry track which meandered its way beneath a
vaulted canopy of beeches towards Barbadoes Hill.

The woods, which
had frightened her a little when she had first moved out of Bristol, were now a
place of wonder to her. She had learned to identify the different trees from
the shapes of their leaves and the texture of their bark, she knew her way to a
secret glade in which a five-hundred- year-old oak stood, slowly shrinking and
dying a death that would linger over two centuries. She had discovered a beech
whose lower branches had rooted to form fresh shoots where they touched the
ground, and the stump of an ancient lime coppice, the hollow centre of which
formed a pool of rainwater that teemed with tadpoles in early spring.

She covered the
two uphill miles that took her to the lookout spot high above Tintern without
breaking sweat. Through the gap in the trees she looked down on the abbey from
her favourite angle, with the sun slanting through the empty windows and
casting magnificent shadows across the meadow beyond. It was impossible to
believe that less than twenty miles away there were high-rises and screaming
sirens, and a multitude of people who would spend a lifetime entombed in
concrete, disconnected from all that sustained them.

Jenny drifted
down the hill in a dream, letting thoughts float in and out of her mind as
lazily as dandelion feathers on the breeze. She'd call Ross when she got home.
Now she was in a better state of mind she could trust herself not to rise to
his spiky moods. What they needed was some time together so he could see how
she had changed. In a little over a year he'd be at university or off
travelling the world; there was no time to lose. She had to make him her first
priority: from now on, whatever work threw at her, her precious and only son
would come first.

She picked up
her pace for the return journey, anxious to get home and make the call.
Approaching the final leg, the path dipped steeply through a dense stand of
conifers and she passed from light into shadow. A twig snapped behind her, a
foot scuffed on loose ground. She glanced back to see the silhouette of a
slender male some thirty yards distant.

'Is that you,
Mrs Cooper?'

The voice was
familiar, yet not one she could place. He sped up to a jog, his features
catching the light as he drew closer. Jenny felt suddenly cold.

'It's Paul. You
remember me.'

'Yes—'
She continued walking. There was a long S-bend and a straight, one-hundred-yard
stretch between her and the road. A quarter of a mile or thereabouts; three or
four minutes' walk at the most.

'I hope you
don't mind. I read in the paper you lived near Tintern. A man in the pub told
me you were up this lane.'

But you must
have been following me for nearly four miles,
Jenny thought.
Were you lurking
in a hedge, or hiding inside the cottage, perhaps? Why choose this moment?

'I got bail
pending my appeal,' Paul Craven said.

'So I heard.
Congratulations.'

'My solicitor
reckons there won't even be a hearing. I'll get a pardon, from the Queen he
says.' He laughed.

Jenny glanced at
his smooth, angular face, unlined by the stresses of the world outside prison
walls. He had the restless, coiled energy of a feral child.

'I wanted to say
thank you, Mrs Cooper.'

'I appreciate
it,' Jenny said, quickening her pace as much as she dared. Some instinct told
her to take the initiative, to distract him. 'I hope they've found you
somewhere to stay.'

'Probation
hostel. It's not
bad ...
At least I'm in with some other blokes this time.'

'What about
Father Starr? Has he been in touch?'

'It's a
different priest who visits the hostel, Father Jason. I like him, he's a good
man. Takes a while to get to know someone though, doesn't it - so that you can
trust them, I mean?'

'I should make
good use of him, if I were you, it's his job to help.' She'd made it to the
first bend. If she kept him talking she could reach the road. But then what?
She'd be lucky to see a car between the end of the track and the house. 'Have
you thought about work? Is there anything you'd like to do?'

Craven looked at
her strangely. 'The thing I didn't say to you, Mrs Cooper, is why I confessed
to something I didn't do. You'd like to know that, wouldn't you?'

'It's up to
you,' Jenny said cautiously.

'Father Starr
always warned me that the devil would come when I least expected it,' Craven
said. 'When I saw her picture on the television and heard what had happened to
her, I could see myself doing it. I actually saw her face, the knife, the look
in her eyes as the life went out of her. It was him put it all in my head, made
it so I thought it was real. It was the
devil...
I can see that
now. And then Father Starr found you. You know what I thought when you came to
see me in prison? I thought you must be an angel. Who else would come to help a
man like me?'

Heart thumping,
Jenny visualized the terrain ahead. There was a drainage ditch on the left that
was overgrown with nettles. She'd push him in then take off, get the five
seconds' head start she needed to break clear. She glanced down at his shoes: a
pair of ill-fitting leather lace-ups. Another few seconds' advantage.

'I'd been
praying for an angel to come, Mrs Cooper, just like Father Starr told me to.'

'Believe me, Mr
Craven, I'm no angel. I'm just a coroner doing my job.'

'You're wrong
about that, Mrs Cooper. It's like Father Starr says, God works in ways you
can't even begin to imagine. Maybe you can't see how he used you, but he did.
You're looking at the proof.' He smiled, as if he were experiencing a sudden
rush of ecstasy.

They were
rounding the middle of the bend - only a few more yards to the home straight.
Perhaps Father Starr had been right to trust him? He might be perfectly
harmless, just a little gauche and bewildered.

She had to drive
the agenda, set the boundaries. That must be what he needed, an authority
figure. 'What time do you have to be back at the hostel, Mr Craven?'

'Doesn't matter,
does it, if they're going to pardon me?'

'It might be as
well not to upset them. What if I were to drive you home? You can be back by
nine.'

'No need, Mrs
Cooper. I'll be fine.'

She attempted a
sterner tone. 'You know, if you break the rules they could turn you out, or
even send you back to prison. You don't want that.'

'No . . . I'm
never going back there. Never.'

Good. She was in
control, making him feel safe again.

'Well, this is
what we'll do. I'll call the hostel and arrange to get you home. I'll make sure
Father Jason's looking after you and everything will be fine. Does that sound
good?'

Craven nodded.
'Yes . . .'

The end of the
track was in sight. A tractor drove past on the road, a car tucked in close
behind it.

She groped for
some words to fill the void. 'Have you made any friends yet? I expect it takes
a while in a new place.'

'No,' Craven
mumbled.

'Give it a
couple of days,' Jenny said encouragingly.

'You don't want
me here, do you?'

'I'm just
concerned you don't get into trouble.'

'You think I'm
shit.'

'No, Mr Craven.
I wouldn't have gone to the trouble I did-'

'You think I'm a
worthless piece of shit. Say it!'

He didn't give
her a chance.

His fist hit the
back of her neck like a hammer blow, exploding stars in front of her eyes. She
splayed forwards onto the ground, her palms striking the sharp stones as she
held them out to break her fall. She tried to scramble away on all-fours, but
her legs refused to move. She clawed at the dirt, trying to get some purchase,
but Craven kicked her hands from under her and drove another kick hard into her
ribs. Drifting in and out of her body, Jenny saw only his feet as he walked
around her in circles, ranting and yelling. Flecks of spittle landed on her
cheek, but her hand wouldn't lift to wipe them away. He crouched at her side
and grabbed her by the shoulders, rolling her over onto her back. She felt him
tugging at the belt of her jeans, scratching her stomach with his sharp
fingernails. He dug a knee into her chest and wrenched at the buckle. No! No!
The words screamed silently inside her head. He thrust his thumbs inside her
waistband, pushing it down with impatient jerks of his narrow shoulders. The
rough ground grated against her thighs as his fingers dug into the flesh above
her knees. He turned around to face her, one hand forcing downwards on her
chest, the other fumbling with his zip.

She felt the low
vibration of the engine in her bones before she heard it. Craven looked up,
still tugging at his fly, then down at Jenny with a startled expression, a
frightened child again. She felt his fingers tightened momentarily on her
T-shirt, then he flung himself away from her, crawling crab-like across the
track as he scrabbled to his feet and ran, arms flailing, up the hill. Jenny
half-rolled onto her side, tasting warm blood in her mouth as the tractor rumbled
to a halt and heavy boots jumped down from the cab and came running towards her.