Jenny glanced up. 'What?'
'About a week later. I was leaving the house with my granddaughter. Six years old she was at the time. I was taking her home to her mammy's on a Saturday afternoon. We'd got in the car outside the house and this fella with the ponytail knocked on the passenger window. I wound down the window and he leaned in, smiling, and said, 'Anyone asks, you never saw us.' Then he brings out this can of orange paint and sprays it all over my granddaughter's hair. She was screaming. He didn't stop . . .' Madog shook his head. 'I had to wash it out with turpentine. Took all morning.'
'You didn't report this to the police?' Jenny said.
Madog said, 'If you'd've been there you wouldn't ask that. I'm telling you, he was spraying that paint and smiling:
'But did you tell all this to Mr Dean?'
'Not the paint bit. I swear to God, to this day even my daughter still doesn't know.'
'This man must have really scared you,' Jenny said.
'Yeah, he was like a . . . like—'
'The devil in disguise?' McAvoy said.
'You shouldn't take that kind of crap from people,' McAvoy said. 'You're the coroner, for God's sake - more powers than a High Court judge.'
'Hardly.'
'Look 'em up. If you'd got the balls you'd use them.'
Jenny glanced across at him as she swung the Golf back up the slip road to the service station. He was good-looking in a battered kind of way, but not a man you'd trust to mind your handbag. There was something of the con artist about him: the suit was good, but you couldn't be sure if that wasn't all there was to him.
'So what are you going to do? This guy with the ponytail sounds like an evil son of a bitch. A real professional, thought all the psychology through. Spray paint on a kiddy's head - sweet Jesus.'
'I'll get my officer to take Madog's statement and call him as a witness.'
'And what are the jury going to do with that? You've got to find this Toyota surely, and the ponytail fella.'
'A black Toyota? There must be thousands of them.'
'You'd be surprised. Probably only a few hundred the same model. Break them down geographically. There aren't many places you'd be going over the old Severn Bridge to get to - all the road does is head up the border country.' He slammed his hand on the dash for emphasis. 'You've got to find out who these people are, not give them a chance to get away by wheeling Madog into court before you've tracked them down. I'll give you a hand, it's got my blood up again.'
Jenny thought about it. His passion was infectious. 'Maybe it wouldn't hurt. Most of the jury didn't look in any hurry to get back to their day jobs.'
'That's the way.' He grinned. 'Good girl.'
Jenny turned into the near-empty car park, her mind swimming with questions about who the men in the front of the Toyota might have been. But could she even be sure Madog was telling the truth? She glanced at McAvoy again and realized she didn't know what to believe in his presence, he seemed to alter reality around him. She wouldn't be able to think straight until she'd got away. She pulled up next to his car.
'Buy you a coffee?' he said.
'I'd better not. Work, you know—'
'I took you for a free spirit, Mrs Cooper.'
There was suddenly an atmosphere between them. The way he was looking at her with smiling, perceptive eyes, he seemed to know her, to reach under her skin. She felt hot and mildly panicked.
'Another time. I'll be in touch . . . And thanks.'
McAvoy nodded as if he understood the many reasons for her reticence entirely. He reached for the door handle, then paused. 'Oh, I forgot to mention it to you - standing in the inquest yesterday, I remembered Mrs Jamal once saying she suspected Nazim had a girlfriend.'
'She knew about Dani James?'
'No, I think she was talking about earlier, months before that.'
'She hasn't said anything to me.'
'Ask her.' He smiled, said, 'God bless,' and stepped out into the freezing wind.
Alison was still smarting from the premature adjournment of the inquest. Jenny guessed that she'd had Pironi on the phone asking what the hell was going on, and that in the conflict of loyalties Pironi had won. She had evidently spent her first two hours at work tidying: her office was immaculate apart from the overspilling tray on the corner of her desk reserved for Jenny's messages and mail.
Sorting the critical items from the merely urgent, Jenny ignored her officer's frostiness and told her about her trip to the toll plaza with McAvoy. Alison listened, unimpressed, as Jenny announced that she had decided to make finding the Toyota and its occupants a priority before resuming the inquest.
'And when might that happen?' Alison said.
'I thought we'd agreed Monday.'
'Have you any idea how long it takes to get any joy out of the vehicle licensing people at Swansea? It's like Stalin's Kremlin.'
'I was thinking we might go through the police - they're hooked up to the Swansea computers, aren't they?'
'They're snowed under already. Believe me, I've used up all my favours, Mrs Cooper, and more. It's got so even my ex-colleagues are dodging my calls.'
'It's probably best Bristol CID don't know about this one, seeing as they were so closely involved in the original investigation.' She could sense Alison's hackles rising. 'I'll call DS Williams over in Chepstow, see if I can't persuade him to give us a hand.'
'I'm sure he will,' Alison said with feeling. 'He'll leap at any chance to do down the English police.'
'Who said anything about doing them down?'
Alison looked up from her computer screen. 'I told you what I think of Alec McAvoy. He went to prison for fixing witnesses - he made a career out of it. You can't expect me to believe someone he suddenly pulls out of a hat.'
'Madog seemed very sincere to me.'
'Do you really believe he wouldn't have gone to the police if what he told you was true?'
'What possible interest could McAvoy have in interfering with this inquest?'
'Do you want my honest opinion, Mrs Cooper?'
'Fire away.'
Alison unleashed. 'Before he was struck off he was cock of the walk, the flashiest, richest criminal lawyer in town. He didn't only think he was above the law, he thought he was the law. When we caught him out he happened to be representing the missing boys' families. It suited his purposes to say his arrest was political - they were his only clients who weren't hardened villains with form longer than a donkey's dick, as we used to say. Now he's using this inquest. Think about it: he'll dredge up evidence to support his claim that he was the victim of a conspiracy, get the media behind him, and before you know it the Law Society will be pressured into letting him back on the roll.' Alison looked at her imploringly. 'He's a clever man, Mrs Cooper, but rotten to the core. He doesn't give a damn what happened to those boys - this is someone who built his reputation representing gangsters, rapists, murderers.'
'All right,' Jenny said. 'Point taken. But I have to check the car story. And I need you to take a formal statement from Madog.'
She retreated to her office with renewed doubts about McAvoy. Alison's outburst began to explain some of the unease she'd felt in his company. There was something about his powerful aura that frightened her. It wasn't just the uneasy fragility of a disgraced man clinging to tattered shreds of dignity, it was his cast of mind, the unnerving sense that there was a part of his humanity missing. The business with the bollards and the truck: he was reckless, inviting trouble and not giving a damn for the consequences. But when he'd looked at her . . . there'd
