'Danny Wills hanged himself,' Peterson shouted with an unexpected ferocity that made Jenny step backwards. 'It was an open and shut case. Anything of significance I found was in my report. If you don't like it, tough fucking luck, that's all there is.'

  'You're very agitated, Dr Peterson.'

  'Piss off.' He strode back along the pavement the way they came. 'And don't come to my house again unless you've got a warrant.'

  It was a warm enough evening for her to sit at her table on the lawn, which was fast growing back into a meadow, and try to clear some of the backlog of routine cases that had built up. More hospital deaths, a confused old woman who'd been run down by a postal van and a road mender who'd jack- hammered through the mains cable in the street. There were photographs of the dead workman, every inch of his skin burnt charcoal black.

  She was nearing the bottom of the pile and wondering whether she could get away with half a glass of red wine when she caught a whiff of smoke on the breeze. She looked up and saw Steve. He was leaning against the corner of the house by the cart track smoking a fat roll-up. Jenny sniffed again - it wasn't just tobacco, there was some weed in there too.

  Steve said, 'Busy?'

  'Depends what you had in mind.'

  He wandered over with a lazy gait and sat opposite, a few days' growth on his face. His face had turned dark tan from working in the sun. He gave her a wicked smile. 'Guess what I found at the end of my garden?'

  'I can smell. And one of Her Majesty's Coroners should not be talking to a man who's smoking it.'

  'I don't believe in laws. They're made by people who can't trust themselves to be free.'

  'You were born thirty years too late, my friend.'

  'Don't much believe in time, either. You think that tree cares what decade it is?'

  'How much of that stuff have you had?'

  'Almost enough. It's my best crop yet.' He offered the joint across the table, the roach end facing towards her.

  Jenny was tempted but, managing to resist, said, 'I wondered what had happened to you.'

  'I had to wait for the annual harvest to give me the courage to come over.'

  'I'm that frightening?'

  'It's not you, it's me. I'm out of practice.'

  'I wouldn't have noticed, but then so am I.'

  'There are worse sins. You ever tried this stuff?' 'My son has . . .'

  'It's better for him than alcohol. No chemicals, no hangover. Grown in good honest Welsh soil.'

  She watched him take another draw, a serene look on his face, his limbs loose and relaxed, the way she longed to feel. And it smelt so good, taking her back to long-ago parties, the carefree sensation that was close to ecstatic. He gave her a look, tempting her.

  She leaned forward and placed her lips around the joint, but as she touched his fingers with her mouth, she pulled back. 'Scared?'

  'I smoked some cigarettes the other night. I remembered how sore they make my lungs.'

  Steve gave her a look, seeing straight through her evasion. 'You think I'm a bad influence.'

  'I think you're getting a kick out of trying to corrupt a public official.'

  'I guess there could be something in that.' 'In my case I don't think it would be much of a conquest.' He smiled a touch and dropped the joint on to the ground. 'How's it going? I still can't imagine you as a coroner.' 'I can hardly believe it myself.' 'Did you find out what happened to that poor girl?' 'I don't want to talk about it now.' She shuffled her papers into a heap, trying to shut out images of Katy's body on Professor Lloyd's autopsy bench.

  Steve reached out a hand and pushed the hair back from her eyes. Then he moved closer and kissed her gently on the cheek.

  Later, they lay naked on her bed, laughing like a couple of teenagers, high from the thrill of an unfamiliar touch. Steve said, 'You know you're the talk of the valley.'

  'Oh, yeah?'

  'Beautiful woman living on her own, it's the stuff of people's fantasies.'

  'I hope they're filthy.'

  'Obscene. You should hear what you've been up to with Rhodri Glendower.'

  'I'm just grateful for the attention.'

  'That makes me feel very special.'

  She rolled over and lay on top of him, her elbows either side of his shoulders. 'Don't you dare get needy on me when I'm having such a good time.'

  He brought a hand up to the small of her back and stroked it, looking into her eyes. 'I wouldn't dream of it.'

  She moved her mouth towards his and kissed him, touching him with every part of her.

  Steve was upstairs in the shower and she was in the kitchen wearing just her bathrobe, taking her pills, when the knock at the door came. She glanced at the clock on the stove: it was only just past seven a.m. The caller knocked again, louder, as she hurried through the sitting room to the front door. She tied the robe tight around herself and opened the door a crack.

  A stocky middle-aged man in a grey suit and Hush Puppies held up an identification badge. 'Good morning, ma'am, Detective Sergeant Owen Williams from Chepstow. Are you Mrs Cooper?'

  'Yes.' She saw two young female constables in uniform standing on the path behind him, two squad cars parked out on the lane. Her first thought was of Ross.

  'You wouldn't happen to have a Mr Stephen Painter on the premises, would you?'

  'What's the matter?'

  Sounding almost apologetic, he said, 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to have a word with him and search the house, ma'am.

  I've had information that leads me to believe that arrestable offences have taken place here.' 'Information from where?'

  'I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to disclose my source at the present moment. Would you let us in, please?' 'He's in the shower.' 'We'll go up together, then, shall we?'

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  They kept Jenny and Steve separate while they searched the house, she in the kitchen, he in the sitting room. Through the door she could hear him saying that she had no idea he'd been smoking some home-grown with his tobacco, it was nothing to do with her. Williams said not to worry, they'd go into all that later, at the station.

  They found the dead roaches in the bin and Steve's baggie in his jeans pocket. While the constables wrote out evidence labels and filled in exhibit forms Jenny was allowed to get dressed and make a phone call. She caught Alison before she left home, meaning to tell her the truth, but found herself saying that she had to wait in for an emergency plumber and would come to the office in a while.

  She rode in the back of Williams's car to Chepstow. Steve went with the two constables, Williams careful to keep them apart before the interviews, showing the uniforms how a real detective handled suspects: firmly but respectfully. Winding along the valley from Tintern to St Arvans, Jenny was surprised at how relaxed she felt. She couldn't make up her mind if it was the new pills or that the situation was so fantastic she couldn't take it seriously. Williams listened to a Welsh- language radio station: bad pop music and singsong chatter, an English word popping out every now and then. He asked Jenny if she spoke Welsh. She said no, her family were from across the estuary in Somerset, but since she'd moved she'd thought about taking an evening class. Williams said she should, the only downside was that after you'd been speaking Welsh for a while, English sounded as harsh as German, no music in it.

  Jenny said she'd never thought of it that way, and, feeling that they were building a rapport, asked, 'Who told you Steve was at my place?'

  Williams said, 'You know we can't reveal the identities of our informers, Mrs Cooper.'

  'It was that girl who works at the Apple Tree, wasn't it - Annie?'

  He glanced at her in the mirror, a wise little smile under his greying moustache.

  Jenny and Steve were kept in adjacent interview rooms while Williams went through the laborious process of interview, a female constable at his side for the sake of propriety. Steve was first. Jenny could hear only muffled conversation through the thin walls but the fact he was talking at all made her guess that he was repeating what he had told them at the house. When her turn came she took a chance and said she had no idea what he was smoking; it would never have occurred to her that anyone would smoke drugs in her presence. Williams listened politely, but let her know with his eyes what he thought.

  It was past eleven a.m. when he came back into the room and said that the evidence was sufficient for him to be obliged to press charges. Due to the amount of marijuana he had on him, Steve was being charged with possession with intent to supply; Jenny with allowing her premises to be used. He'd bail them both and hand the file to the local CPS. Give it a week or two and there'd be a letter in the post with a court date.

  Jenny said, 'How can you prove I knew or believed he was smoking marijuana?'

  'That's the CPS's problem, Mrs Cooper.'

  'Are they going to make these charges public?'

  'I've no idea.'

  She caught his eye as he shuffled his papers on the table, the morning's business at an end. 'Can I ask you something? Do you really want to do this to me or has someone told you to?'

  'I don't know what you mean, ma'am.'

  'You've read the papers. I'm in the middle of two inquests which aren't exactly covering our police and prison service in glory.'

  He slotted his statements into a file. 'That's news to me.'

  'I can tell - you're finding this as weird as I am.'

  Williams turned to the constable. 'Show Mrs Cooper out, would you?'

  They met on the front step outside the station. Steve held up his hands. 'I'm sorry . . .'

  'That might just be the most expensive sex I've ever had.'

  'Not the best?'

  She gave him a look, not able to laugh, and said, 'Any idea who it was who called them?'

  'I guess it was Annie. I was down there briefly before I came round . . .' A guilty look came over his face.

  'What?'

  'One of the guys down there, Ed, said someone had been in last weekend asking after you.'

  'Who?'

  'Just a guy. Thirties. He thought he might be a copper, except he was quite fit-looking. Toned.'

  'What did he want to know?'

  'Whether you came in, who your friends were. Ed thought he must be an ex-boyfriend sniffing around.'

  'Did he mention you?'

  'I haven't told anyone about us.'

  'From what you say, you don't have to.'

  He touched her hand, holding her fingers. 'I'm sorry, Jenny.'

  'You don't have to keep saying that. It's not your fault.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Get a taxi, and something to eat.'

  It was raining again, the tail-end of a heavy summer storm, so they sat at the tiny table in the kitchen. The cramped domestic scene added to the sense of unreality; like watching somebody else's strange day play out. All she had to go in a sandwich were cheese and lettuce. She apologized for her poor supply of groceries and joked that if he wanted a slim girlfriend he couldn't expect to be well fed. She'd said 'girlfriend' without thinking and waited for him to react, but he didn't. Sitting there eating a sandwich, he seemed quite comfortable. Perhaps he was trying to make up for destroying her career.

  She asked him again about the man making enquiries about her. Steve said that was all he knew, a man, not young, not old, asking about her habits.

  'Who do you think he is?'

  She looked at him as she took a sip of her coffee. 'I can trust you, can't I?'

  'I guess I've only got you arrested once.'

  She put down the cup, feeling annoyed at herself for doubting him, aware of the dark unwanted thoughts creeping in at the edges, getting around the chemical cocktail in her brain. 'No one's asked you anything about me?'

  'No. What's this to do with - your work?'

  'Why did you come here that first day?'

  He stopped eating, a surprised look on his face.

  She said, 'The truth.'

  It took a moment for him to find the words. 'OK . . . The day you moved in there was a rental van outside. I drove past and saw you lugging this big plastic laundry basket filled with stuff up the front path ... I thought you looked pretty. It was one of those moments—'

  'What moments?'

  'When you know something's going to change.'

  'You fancied me hauling a laundry basket?'

  'If we're being really truthful, it was more than that ... I knew I had to have you.'

  'That would be in the sexual sense?'

  'In every sense.'

  'And look at us now, we're going to court together.'

  Steve looked down at the table. 'I don't know what to say . . . I'll take the blame, it wasn't your fault. . . Maybe I should go now.'

  'Swear to me you didn't set me up.'

  'I can guess how it happened . . . Annie knows I had grass, I gave her some. And she could have known I was coming here. I passed a couple of guys I know in the lane on my way up. They'd have told her where I was.'

  'Are you sleeping with her, too?'

  'Not recently.'

  'She hates you enough to call the police?'

  'It was her who told me about the guy ... He gave her some money.'

  'And you didn't say anything to me?'

  'I was going to ... I got distracted.'

  Jenny let out a short laugh, then laughed again, louder, but with tears behind her eyes. She tried to stop them but they caught her by surprise and rinsed her cheeks. Steve got out of his chair and came round the table and hugged her.

  Later, when she had control of herself, she told him about Danny Wills and Katy Taylor and what had happened to Harry Marshall and Tara Collins. She told him how she had started out with good intentions, but now she was scared.

  Steve asked what he could do to help. Jenny said not to blame himself for what had happened. UKAM would have found a way to get to her one way or another.

  From the look on Alison's face Jenny could tell that she knew. She said there had been phone calls from journalists and the story was already up on the Post's website: Severn Vale Coroner in Dope Bust. Simon Moreton from the Ministry of Justice had emailed asking Jenny to call him. The list officer at the Law Courts had telephoned to say they'd had a message that the courtroom wouldn't be required on Monday - was that correct? Things were moving fast. She'd also heard that the police inquiry into Katy Taylor's disappearance had been put on hold for a week because officers had been diverted to an investigation into the petrol-bombing of a mosque.

  Jenny said, 'If someone came and offered me a bribe now to get clear of this, I don't think it would take much.'

  Alison pushed a pile of overnight reports across the desk. 'Do you want to look at these?'

  'Might as well.' She picked them up and turned to her office.

  'Do you want to tell me what happened?' Alison asked gently.

  Beyond caring, Jenny said, 'My new boyfriend was smoking grass. One thing led to another . . . His ex called the police but I think someone from UKAM had got to her first. She's a single mum who works behind a bar.'

  'You lead an exciting life.'

  'Want to swap?'

  Alison gave her a motherly look. 'What shall I tell anyone who asks?'

  'You used to be a copper, think of a story.'

  She sat at her desk knowing there were people she should contact, Simone Wills, Andy and Claire Taylor, but what would she tell them - sorry, but my dope-smoking boyfriend and I were only having some harmless fun? She felt like a fool, humiliated. You couldn't come up with a better set-up - make the victim feel like she's brought it on herself.

  The first call was from Moreton. He sounded embarrassed. 'I hear you've got yourself into a drop of hot water, Jenny.'

  She said, 'I would explain to you how a wealthy private corrections company skilfully disposed of my predecessor and is now doing the same to me, but I don't think you'd believe me.'

  'I'm afraid I have to concern myself with rather more mundane matters, such as what to do with you while these charges are still pending.'

 

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