The Innocent: A Coroner Jenny Cooper Crime Short Read online

  She nodded – she could hardly refuse – and followed him along the length of the corridor to another set of doors marked ‘Refrigeration Unit’. Jenny bowed her head to avoid looking at the shrouded bodies.

  ‘Not family, are you?’ Joe said.

  ‘No,’ Jenny answered. ‘I dealt with her professionally.’

  ‘That’s good. You wouldn’t want family to see this.’

  Jenny followed him through the door. She felt nauseous.

  Detective Sergeant Pete Murray was leaning against the wall checking his text messages. With short, dyed-blond hair and a gold stud in his ear, he didn’t look like a police officer. He was Jenny’s age, perhaps a year or two younger, and, she had always assumed, gay. She suspected he’d suffered in his young life and was still trying to settle the score.

  Pete looked at her, but didn’t say a word.

  ‘All right?’ Joe said.

  Jenny nodded and watched while he opened a large refrigerator door, then slid out a drawer that moved on silent runners.

  Even though the girl’s remains were wrapped in plastic, Jenny could see that they were in several parts.

  ‘Just the face.’ Pete broke his silence to issue the instruction.

  Joe peeled back the flap covering the head and Jenny forced herself to look, digging her fingernails into the palms of her clenched hands.

  The face was violently bruised and the long, black hair matted with blood, but the delicate features were Natasha’s. Even dead she was beautiful. Too beautiful. The words popped into Jenny’s mind unprompted. She pushed them away.

  ‘Yes. It’s her.’

  Joe slid the drawer back into the cabinet. Jenny turned and went with Pete to the door, anxious to get away.

  They walked several steps along the tiled corridor in silence, then Pete said, ‘I’ve got the mother in the car. I don’t know if you want to say anything to her.’

  ‘Oh. Do you think it’s a good time?’

  ‘Up to you.’ He gave her a look that said it would be cowardly of her to leave it all to him.

  ‘OK. I’ll talk to her.’ Nothing could be worse than what she had just experienced.

  Karen was sitting in the front seat of the unmarked police car dressed in the black suit she always wore to court, her plaited hair tied up in a bun with artfully arranged strands framing her face. She was a pretty woman who in another life might have had a house, a job and a husband. But Jenny had read in her files that she had grown up with an alcoholic mother who had prostituted herself and probably involved Karen, too. Her father, a building labourer, had flitted in and out of their lives before disappearing altogether; until earlier this year, when he’d turned up asking to meet his granddaughter. It was a familiar pattern in dysfunctional families: damage followed by remorse. And always too late.

  Pete tapped on the glass and opened the door. Karen’s make-up had been smudged by tears.

  ‘Hi, Karen,’ Pete said. ‘You know Mrs Cooper.’

  She looked at Jenny and nodded. The memories weren’t happy ones: fraught care hearings Karen contested because she couldn’t resist the drama; Jenny always the one telling the judge she wasn’t a fit mother.

  ‘She made the ID,’ Pete said, leaving it to Jenny to break the news.

  ‘I’m sorry, Karen,’ Jenny said. ‘It was Natasha.’ She ran out of words. Nothing seemed adequate.

  There was a barren moment of silence. They were all on uncharted ground. Jenny waited for Karen to break down and wail, the way she had in court each time a judge had taken Natasha from her, but she surprised her by remaining calm.

  ‘You know why she did this, don’t you?’ Karen said. ‘It’s because you took her away from me.’

  Jenny resisted defending herself. ‘I think it’s a bit early to ask those questions. Is there anything we can do for you? I can have someone come round—’

  Karen shook her head. ‘You’re the one who’s going to need counselling, Mrs Cooper. My conscience is clear.’ She nodded to Pete. ‘He said she called you from the station and you didn’t do nothing about it.’

  ‘Natasha left me a message. She said she was OK.’

  ‘Liar. She said, “It’s OK.” That’s what you told him.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Jenny corrected herself.

  ‘So you were lying.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘It’s a big thing to get wrong, when my daughter’s just gone under a train.’

  Jenny looked to Pete for back-up, but he glanced away.

  ‘How did she have your number, anyway?’ Karen demanded. ‘You’re just the lawyer, not her social worker.’

  Jenny stammered over her reply, realizing that she’d stepped into a trap. That must have been a question Pete had asked Karen in the car on the way over: what was Natasha doing phoning the council’s lawyer on her private phone? Kids in care dealt with their social workers.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jenny heard herself say. ‘You crossed the line,’ Karen said. She jabbed an accusing finger towards her. ‘I’m going to make you pay for that.’ She pulled the car door closed and stared straight ahead.

  Jenny turned to Pete for help.

  He shrugged. ‘It’s a fair question.’

  ‘I’ve worked with Natasha for years. We both have.’

  ‘She didn’t have my number.’

  ‘Perhaps she trusted me?’

  ‘Don’t say anything, Jenny. Really, I shouldn’t.’

  He climbed into the car and drove Karen away.

  FIVE

  No kindness ever goes unpunished. It was a phrase Jenny’s father had been fond of repeating throughout her childhood, and it rang around her head as she drove back across town to the office. She wanted her thoughts to be with Natasha, to allow herself to grieve, but since her encounter with Karen she had felt a rising sense of panic at the thought that she might have done something wrong; something that would have consequences. She had given twelve years of her life to the team, and in order to help kids like Natasha, she had sacrificed the chance to be a far better mother to Ross, but she had a feeling all of that might count for little. Pete Murray had already begun organizing his defence against the possible accusation that he hadn’t done enough to find Natasha in time. He was going to raise a suspicion against Jenny: she knew Natasha was missing, they were evidently close, yet she had switched off her phone. Wasn’t that odd?

  Elaine was waiting for her. ‘Could we have a moment, Jenny? We’ll go to the meeting room.’

  Jenny followed her between the cluttered workstations. Heads turned and looked at her as she passed. Jenny avoided their gazes, but sensed their accusation. She had committed the cardinal sin: she had got too close.

  Elaine sat behind the glass conference table and gestured Jenny to a seat opposite. She already had Natasha’s files spread out and had been making notes.

  ‘How was it?’ Elaine inquired. ‘Not too shaken up, I hope?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll know for a while.’

  Elaine made an attempt at a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry to have to do this to you, Jenny, but there will be an inquest. The coroner will go through her history with a fine toothcomb.’

  Jenny had scarcely given a thought to the coroner. Of course. He would trawl Natasha’s files for evidence of mishandling. She would have to make a sworn statement and give evidence in court. She had never been inside a witness box.

  ‘That’s presuming the police don’t take an interest first,’ Elaine continued.

  ‘The police? Why would they be involved? She went under a train – there’ll be video from the platform.’

  ‘I’m sure, but they’ll still want to look into the background.’

  ‘It’s all in the files. There are no secrets.’

  Elaine pulled on a pair of reading glasses. ‘I see this last care order was made following the discovery that she was sexually active.’

  ‘That’s right. She had a pregnancy scare. She confessed it to Judy on a home visit.’

/>   ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Isn’t Judy meant to inspire that sort of confidence?’

  ‘Who was the potential father?’

  ‘Some boy at school. I don’t think she ever specified.’

  ‘We’re sure it wasn’t someone older? One of the mother’s partners, perhaps? It looks as if she’s had a lot of them.’

  ‘I was never told that, but it’s always a fear, of course. Especially with the kind of men Karen brings home.’

  ‘A vulnerable, sexually active fourteen-year-old girl with a history of running away from foster placements. And you didn’t consider her a suitable candidate for a secure home?’

  ‘I considered her a candidate for a stable and loving family. That’s what we found her.’

  Elaine turned over more pages in the file and extracted a report on the foster parents. It was the standard profile document the team maintained on all the carers on their books. ‘Frank Bartlett, forty-eight, married twenty-five years, works as a garage mechanic. He and his wife seem to have fostered a disproportionate number of teenage girls.’

  ‘His wife’s a nurse. She’s good with them.’

  ‘Are we sure their interest is completely healthy?’

  ‘Please. These are some of the most dedicated people we’ve got.’

  ‘Even angels fall, Jenny.’

  ‘Not these ones. They’ve got two grown-up daughters of their own. I’ve met them. They’re both lovely, well-adjusted young women.’

  ‘All right. The police will talk to them, I’m sure.’ Elaine moved on in the file. ‘I was looking for any suggestion that Natasha might have had a history of self-harming or suicidal thoughts. I couldn’t find anything.’

  ‘I don’t think those were her problems. She had plenty of others.’

  Elaine stared at her over the rims of her glasses. ‘Why do you think she killed herself, Jenny? She was in our care. We’re going to have to come up with an answer.’

  ‘Sometimes there isn’t one,’ Jenny said. ‘We’ve all known people who—’

  Elaine interrupted. ‘I don’t think you understand.’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘Listen to me, Jenny. We have to come up with a reason. You know what will happen if we don’t.’

  Jenny didn’t answer her.

  ‘Moments before she jumped, she called your number. It may not seem obvious to you, but from here it looks as if you had become very special to her. You’re a lawyer, not a social worker, so it looks odd, to say the least. Suspiciously odd.’

  ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘Did you have an inappropriate relationship with that girl?’

  ‘Of course not—’ For a moment Jenny found herself speechless. ‘How could you even think that?’

  ‘Come on, Jenny. We’ve both worked here long enough to know that anything’s possible.’

  Jenny looked into Elaine’s expectant face and saw that the women she had served so loyally really was prepared to believe she had exploited an innocent child. ‘You’ve lost touch with reality, Elaine. You’ve forgotten who I am.’

  Elaine gathered up the papers in front of her into a neat pile. ‘I think it’s best you stay away from the office until this has been dealt with. I’d also ask you not to speak to or contact anyone else in the team.’

  ‘You’re suspending me?’

  ‘Yes. Check your contract. It’s standard procedure.’

  SIX

  ‘Suspended? What are you meant to have done?’ David was appalled.

  ‘I told you – nothing. There’ll be a review. It’ll be fine.’ Jenny had been determined to show her husband she was coping despite the feelings of shame, anger, grief and bewilderment churning inside her. He was a surgeon – a man who avoided emotional involvement with his patients – and wouldn’t have understood the connection she’d had with Natasha, still less the impulse that had led her to hand over her mobile phone number.

  David glanced at her dubiously as he filled his glass with Chianti. ‘I’d get my retaliation in first, if I were you. You can’t expect loyalty, not from anyone. What were the foster parents doing?’

  ‘They weren’t expected to keep her under lock and key.’

  ‘Time for a saner job if you ask me,’ David said. ‘You can do without this nonsense.’

  ‘I like my work—’

  ‘You don’t fancy something less stressful for a while? Might do you good – more time with Ross.’

  ‘We’re back on this again?’

  ‘God, Jenny, please! I’m concerned for you.’ He rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘You know I am.’

  Jenny let out a sigh. He had touched a nerve. Her guilt at spending so little time with Ross was ratcheting up each day. There were plenty of part-time legal jobs that would have left her with time to be a proper wife and mother.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Jenny. It will. I know how conscientious you are.’

  She felt herself soften towards him and dipped her head into his shoulder. He stroked her hair. Lately, their moments of affection had become so rare that she had almost forgotten what it was like just to feel his warmth and closeness.

  ‘Perhaps this is timely, you know? One of those moments you’ll look back on as pivotal?’

  ‘Maybe.’ For the first time that day she felt tears run down her cheeks. It was a relief of sorts. She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘No need to be.’ He set down his glass and circled his muscular arms around her. ‘I do love you, Jenny. I really do.’ He kissed the top of her forehead and her damp eyelids, just like he used to when they had first become lovers. They’d met when she was still a student, spent all their adult lives together, learnt all they knew about the harshness and injustice of the world alongside one another. ‘Have some more wine. Try to forget about it. I’ll see to dinner tonight.’

  She was refilling her glass when the doorbell sounded.

  ‘I’ll go.’ David was insistent.

  He stepped around her and into the hall while Jenny hung back in the kitchen. She had a bad feeling.

  She saw him open the door to a man and woman who could only have been detectives. The woman’s eyes peered past him, scanning the inside of the house.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ her colleague said. ‘Is Mrs Cooper at home?’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Reynolds, and Detective Constable Clarke.’

  ‘I’ll see if she’s available.’ David addressed them in the clipped tone he used to subdue awkward patients. ‘Wait there.’

  Jenny set down her glass on the counter and went out into the hallway. She met David’s eyes. ‘It’s all right.’

  She approached her visitors. They were young, Reynolds no more than thirty-five, his female colleague still in her twenties. ‘Jenny Cooper. How can I help you?’

  ‘We’d like a word about Natasha Greenslade.’

  ‘Of course. What would you like to know?’

  ‘We’ve had a formal complaint against you, Mrs Cooper. Nothing that would justify an arrest at this stage, but it might be in your interests to come with us to make a statement.’

  ‘Can’t you speak to her here?’ David couldn’t resist intervening.

  Ignoring him, Reynolds continued, ‘It’s better for you if it’s on video. We can’t do that here.’

  ‘I really shouldn’t, Jenny,’ David warned. ‘Not without a lawyer.’

  ‘Give me a moment. I’ll be right with you,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Jenny—’

  ‘We’ll be in the car,’ Reynolds said, and motioned Clarke to follow him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ David said. ‘They can’t drag you to a police station if you’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Jenny tried to remain calm. ‘They’re just doing their job. If I don’t go with them now, they’ll be back at dawn with a warrant. I don’t think either of us would prefer that.’

  ‘This is outrageous.’

  ‘Tell Ross I’ll see him
tomorrow.’ She reached for her coat and followed the detectives.

  The interview room in The Bridewell was soundproofed and air-conditioned, and the walls seemed to close in tighter with every passing moment. A video camera mounted on a tripod stared accusingly at her, registering every nervous tick and gesture. Jenny felt a bead of sweat trickle from her temple and attempted to wipe it away with a casual gesture as Reynolds glanced down at his notes. He missed it, but Clarke didn’t. She was noting everything with a cruel intelligence. Pale and slender-featured, she was superficially pretty, but there was no feeling coming from her; nothing to appeal to.

  Reynolds looked thoughtfully across the table at her. He was easier and more confident than his colleague, a graduate, Jenny suspected. She found herself trusting him for that reason, but at the same time she knew it was a mistake. She mustn’t trust anyone.

  ‘You’ve no idea how Natasha got your phone number?’ Reynolds asked the question for the third time.

  ‘No.’ Jenny gave the same answer, believing her denial a little more with each repetition. She had felt she had no choice but to stick with the story she had begun. To have done anything else would have made her look as if she had something shameful to hide. And as far as she was concerned, she didn’t. ‘I suppose she might have had opportunities to look at my phone while we were at court together. Or her foster parents might have had it written down somewhere.’

  ‘Sure,’ Reynolds said. ‘But it still begs the question, why you? If we could just crack that—’ He glanced at his colleague. ‘The post-mortem was straightforward. The video from the station shows her stepping off the platform in front of the train. Either she was calling you for help, or she was going to do it anyway and was letting you know. It strikes me that would have been pretty cruel – not something she’d have done without a reason.’

  ‘I’ve had no contact with Natasha since the court case. She seemed perfectly happy with the outcome. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been taken into care before.’

  ‘Have you ever seen her “socially”, Mrs Cooper?’

  ‘Never.’ Jenny felt her heart begin to race. She was frightened that her panic was becoming obvious.