inner door. He was the right age, but his skull was shaved in a tight crew cut. He looked fit and muscular, an outdoors man. More nervous than she had expected, Jenny asked him if he was Christopher Tathum. He confirmed that he was, with no trace of anxiety or apprehension, she noticed, just a man living out in the country doing up a house.
She felt guilty saying it, her heart in her throat, but regretfully told him that his name had arisen as a possible witness in a case she was investigating.
'Really? What case is that?' he said. 'I don't think I know anyone who's died recently.' His voice was educated but not overly so. It had a quality Jenny found familiar but couldn't place. His eyes were intelligent, his expression patient but questioning.
The words tripped out of her mouth without conscious thought. 'Two young Asian men went missing from Bristol in late June 2002. We have a sighting of them in the back seat of a vehicle we believe you may have been renting at the time.'
Tathum smiled, nonplussed. 'Where did you get that from?'
'I'm afraid I can't tell you at the moment. What I need is for you to give a statement saying where you were at the time, 28 June to be precise.'
He seemed amused. 'And if I can't remember?'
'Have a think. See what comes back to you.' She offered him the last business card in her wallet. 'Maybe you could set it down in the form of a signed letter and fax it through to my office over the weekend? Or I can send my officer over to take a statement if you'd prefer.'
He peered at the card by the light of the dim bulb in the open porch in which they were standing. 'I don't know anything about any Asians. I'm a builder.'
'Was that your job at the time, sir?'
'I thought you wanted me to write a letter.' There was a hint of threat in his expression now, his facial muscles tightening into a defensive mask.
Jenny said, 'If you could. Thank you.' She stepped away from the door and started across the yard.
Tathum said, 'Hold on a minute. What is it I'm being accused of here?'
She stopped and glanced back. 'You're not being accused of anything. A coroner's inquest merely pieces together facts and events surrounding a death, or in this case a presumed death.'
'I know nothing about your case. You're wasting your time.'
'Then that's what you should write. Set down where you were working, who you were with, and I can discount you from my inquiries. Goodnight, Mr Tathum.'
She turned back towards the gate.
'You come all the way out here and won't even tell me what I'm meant to have done?'
An instinct told her not to stop.
'Hey, lady. I'm talking to you.' She heard his footsteps coming after her.
She wheeled round to face him. Away from the lights of the house, he was nothing more than an angry shadow.
'It's very simple, Mr Tathum, I'm just asking you to account for your whereabouts on a particular night: 28 June 2002.'
'You know what?' He stepped closer. Jenny moved back and found herself pressed against the gate.
'Mr Tathum —’
Where was McAvoy now she needed him?
Tathum glared at her and seemed to swallow the abuse he was ready to hurl at her. She flinched at a sudden movement of his head towards hers, but there was no contact, only a violent jolt to her nerves. He marched back to the house. She fumbled for the latch on the gate, made it through and tumbled into the car.
When she'd got her breath, McAvoy said, 'That was more like it.'
It was McAvoy's idea to pull over at the pub. If she hadn't been desperate to swallow a pill she would have put up more resistance. She retreated to the sanctuary of a draughty ladies' room and thanked God for the opportunity to medicate herself. She had got it down to a fine art: just enough to soothe her nerves without making her dopey. She had asked him for tonic water and had drunk most of the contents of the glass before she realized the feeling of well-being spreading through her wasn't only due to the log fire in the inglenook or the relief of having escaped her encounter with Tathum unscathed. There was vodka in it. Six months of sobriety up in smoke. She should have told him, but part of her thought:
He was funny and contagious, sensitive and witty. He told her stories about his courtroom adventures that made her laugh until she cried, and tales of the tragic characters he'd met in prison that moved her to tears. And the more he drank, the warmer and more poetic he became. She began to see the complex layers of his contradictory character and to understand his moral code: his acceptance of people, both good and bad, with equal humanity because 'ultimately we're all God's creatures'. In her mildly intoxicated state she found him a beguiling mixture of humility and creativity, of wilful independence and thoughtful submission. His guiding philosophy as a lawyer, he said, had always been, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' It didn't mean - as most people thought - that judging others was sinful, but that all who cast judgement would one day be judged, and by far more demanding laws than any contrived by man.
'And that's where I find my grain of solace,' he said, his fingers cradling his tumbler a whisker away from hers. 'I've done some wicked things in my life, mixed with some truly evil men in this fallen world, but I've never doubted for a moment that I'll be judged as harshly as the next.'
'Do you think you'll get through the strait gate?' Jenny said, with a smile.
'I'd like to think I might squeak it . . . who knows?' He sipped his whisky, his gaze drifting inwards.
Jenny watched him, wondering what he was thinking, what sins he was hoping this crusade might wash away.
She was tempted to ask, but something stopped her. She didn't want to know, didn't want to be forced into judgement. She was learning from him, that was enough, drawing down some yet to be defined wisdom.
From deep in his reverie, McAvoy said, 'Do you think those kids really were terrorists?'
Jenny said, 'Does it matter?'
'What's done in the dark must always come to the light,' McAvoy said. He tipped back the rest of his whisky. 'We should be going.'
Chapter 17
'Mum . . . You OK?'
Jenny rose out of a leaden, dreamless sleep, her limbs too heavy to move. Ross's anxious voice was coming from the foot of the bed.
'Mum?'
'Mmm?' she said, turning her eyes away from the shaft of light streaming through the partially opened curtains.
'I thought you might be ill . . .'
Something felt wrong, constricted. Barely awake, she tried to move to a sitting position and realized she was dressed in her skirt and suit jacket.
'You weren't well when you came home last night,' Ross said. 'I didn't know what was wrong.'
She blinked, her vision slowly coming to focus. Her sleepy gaze wandered around the room. She saw her shoes lying near the door, her handbag on the floor at the side of the bed, the contents - including her two bottles of pills - spilling out on the rug.
'How are you feeling?'
'Fine . . . just tired. What time is it?'
'Just gone nine. It's all right, it's Saturday.'
